HONOLULU (AP) — A fast-moving brush fire fueled by fierce winds has forced the evacuation of over 100 homes on the Hawaii island of Maui, about 60 miles (97 kilometers) from the scene of a devastating fire two years ago that killed more than 100 people in the historic town of Lahaina.
The fire that started Sunday is on the opposite side of the island, in a sparsely populated area with land set aside for Native Hawaiians.
Here’s what we know about the fire so far:
Fire size now estimated at 330 acres
The Kahikinui was initially estimated at 500 acres (202 hectares), but aerial surveys overnight put the estimate at about 330 acres (134 hectares), the County of Maui Department of Fire and Public Safety said. The fire is 80% contained.
“The remote, challenging terrain doesn’t support walking and estimates have varied on this brush fire,” the department said in a statement issued Monday morning.
Smoldering fire conditions continue throughout the burn area. A Maui Police Department drone flown over the area showed numerous hot spots, but none flared overnight.
No injuries or structural damage had been reported. Evacuation orders remained in place Monday, when weather conditions were mostly sunny with a high of 67 degrees Fahrenheit (19 degrees Celsius) and east winds of about 15 mph (24 kph), gusting up to about 25 mph (40 kph).
Maui is considered to be 100% in drought, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor.
Authorities conducted door-to-door evacuations and part of a highway remains closed.
Flashbacks to an earlier fire
Warren Aganos was on his family’s Hawaiian Homelands lot preparing to go on a Father’s Day hunt when a neighbor called him around 9 a.m. telling him a fire had broken out.
“I hung up and raced out, I didn’t let her finish,” said Aganos, who has been slowly rebuilding the three structures his family lost in a 2016 brush fire that burned over 5,000 acres in the same area. “I was thinking about the last one,” he said. “It was super emotional.”
Aganos said he rushed in his truck to make sure first responders knew where the community’s water storage tanks were before navigating Kahikinui’s dirt roads down to the highway where he could see smoke billowing over the hillside. The community lacks electrical and water infrastructure, and some of the roads are only navigable by four-wheel drive.
He worries about neighbors who might not have evacuated. “If the winds change, they can actually be trapped.”
Lt. Gov. Sylvia Luke and Mayor Richard Bissen signed Emergency Proclamations that activate the Hawaii National Guard to deploy resources as needed to aid in fire suppression and protect public safety, and authorizing the county to access federal assistance programs for individuals and public infrastructure.
A shelter opened Monday at a community center after a school gymnasium used as a shelter Sunday had to close for a summer school function.
What is the region like?
Kahikinui is less populated and developed than Lahaina, which was the capital of the Hawaiian Kingdom in the 1800s and has become a popular tourist destination in more recent decades. Kahikinui was used for cattle ranching for many years and is a few miles from the Kahikinui State Forest Reserve, a conservation area.
The fire department sent multiple engines, tankers and a helicopter to battle the blaze in what it called “steep, challenging, hard-to-access terrain.”
The Kahikinui Kuleana Homestead Program created 104 lots and homesteaders accepted leases of 10 to 20 acres each as of 2011, according to the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands.
The leases are issued under a program Congress created in 1920 to help Native Hawaiians become economically self-sufficient by providing them with land. Those with at least 50% Hawaiian blood quantum can apply for a 99-year lease for $1 a year.
Fire devastated Lahaina nearly two years ago
Maui is still recovering from the massive inferno that enveloped Lahaina in August 2023. Starting this week, 50 trucks will spend five weeks transporting Lahaina fire debris to a permanent landfill.
That fire, the deadliest in the U.S. in more than a century, killed more than 100 people, destroyed thousands of properties and caused an estimated $5.5 billion in damage. University of Hawaii researchers say unemployment and poverty rose among fire survivors after the blaze.
Other fires are also burning across the American West
Crews also are battling wildfires in the Pacific Northwest, around the Great Basin, in California and the Rockies.
Forecasters with the National Weather Service and federal land managers have warned in recent weeks that fire danger is escalating in many places amid rising daytime temperatures and single-digit humidity levels.
The risks won’t start to wane — at least in the southwestern U.S. — until the monsoon starts to kick in, bringing much needed rain. In southern New Mexico, a wildfire ballooned to nearly 30 square miles over the weekend in the Gila National Forest.
The flames forced the evacuations of homes that dot the mountains north of Silver City, blocked access to the Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument and prompted air quality warnings as smoke drifted north. Campgrounds and access points to the Continental Divide National Scenic Trail also were closed.
In Oregon, several dozen homes in Wasco County were destroyed by a fire that started last Wednesday. Some evacuations remained in place, but fire managers said Monday that the threat to structures had diminished.
So far this year, the nation has seen double the number of fires as last year but the acreage is less, according to the National Interagency Fire Center. More than 2,700 wildland firefighters and support personnel were currently assigned to 15 large wildfires across the country.
McCormack reported from Concord, New Hampshire, and Thiessen from Anchorage, Alaska. Associated Press journalists Susan Montoya Bryant in Albuquerque and Gabriela Aoun Angueira in San Diego also contributed.