FEMA interpreter Carolina Davis met with Spanish-speaking immigrant Victoria Silva at the Lahaina Civic Center, March 1. The two became acquainted when Victoria sought assistance through FEMA following the Aug. 8 fires on Maui. (David Croxford/Civil Beat/2024)

About a third of Lahaina’s residents were foreign born and 36% of those ages 5 and older spoke a language other than English at home, according to Pacific Gateway Center, a Honolulu nonprofit that opened a resource center on Maui in November. (David Croxford/Civil Beat/2024)

Kalesita Anitema, a bilingual case manager with Pacific Gateway Center’s Immigration Resource Center on Maui, said she is handling the cases of 37 fire survivors, most of whom are Tongan. She feels many survivors with limited English proficiency fell through the cracks. (David Croxford/Civil Beat/2024)

Solomone Fifitaniua, whose apartment on Front Street burned down in the wildfires, said he became frustrated while trying to seek aid from FEMA because he could not find a Tongan interpreter. He’s now working with Tongan bilingual case manager, Kalesita Anitema, of Pacific Gateway Center. (David Croxford/Civil Beat/2024)

The state bought the former Maui Sun Hotel in Kihei from the Haggai International Mid-Pacific Center for $38 million in March. (Cammy Clark/Civil Beat/2024)

Maui fire survivors may start moving into some of the Haggai property’s 175 furnished guest rooms as soon as early May. (Cammy Clark/Civil Beat/2024)

The largest concentration of the at least 101 people who died in the Aug. 8 Lahaina fire was found along Kahua Street and adjacent roads near the Pioneer Mill smokestack. (David Croxford/Civil Beat/2024)

Cars were still parked in early March where they were on the day of the fires. All that remains of almost all the homes in the area is ash, cinder and other debris. (David Croxford/Civil Beat/2024)

County leaders are striving to strike a balance that can make Lahaina safer and more resilient after the fire without preventing its residents in older, working-class and largely multigenerational neighborhoods from rebuilding and resuming their lives. (David Croxford/Civil Beat/2024)

Kuhua currently dead-ends to the north, near the Kahoma Stream. To the west, drivers are blocked in by a gated fence. (David Croxford/Civil Beat/2024)

The Army Corps of Engineers has been running computer models that gauge how quickly people might have escaped the deadly Aug. 8 wildfire in Lahaina if alternate routes were available. (David Croxford/Civil Beat/2024)

Property cleanup efforts have begun around Kuhua Street and other parts of Lahaina. (David Croxford/Civil Beat/2024)

Col. Jesse Curry was presented with a wood carving in the shape of Maui with an inscription thanking him for his six months commanding the field fire recovery office for the Army Corps of Engineers. (Cammy Clark/Civil Beat/2024)

More than 3,000 people, including Randy Dadez and his family who lost their home in the fire, are still living in hotels set up as emergency shelters as they work with the state and FEMA to move into longer term housing. (Brittany Lyte/Civil Beat/2024)

Fire survivors have been turning down units at the Harbor Lights housing complex in Kahului, with some saying they’d rather live in their car than a “disgusting” room there. (Cammy Clark/Civil Beat/2024)

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Fire debris is temporarily going to a landfill in Olowalu while waiting on a permanent site in Central Maui. Photographed here in March. (Nathan Eagle/Civil Beat/2024)

Maui County may acquire a 20-acre parcel of quarried land next to the Central Maui Landfill by eminent domain for use as the final dump site of debris and ash from the Lahaina wildfire. (Cammy Clark/Civil Beat/2024)

Maui Mayor Richard Bissen delivered his State of the County address at the Castle Theater of the Maui Arts and Cultural Center on March 15. (David Croxford/Civil Beat/2024)

The State of the County address included musical performances and more before Mayor Bissen spoke. (David Croxford/Civil Beat/2024)

“I am here to report that the state of our county is heartbroken,” Mayor Bissen said in his State of the County address. (David Croxford/Civil Beat/2024)

Mayor Bissen said he plans to ask the Maui County Council, chaired by Alice Lee, right, for additional funding, positions and policy initiatives related to the fire recovery and housing crisis. (David Croxford/Civil Beat/2024)

Maui County Council Chair Alice Lee and the rest of the nine-member council will take up the mayor’s proposed budget in April. (Cammy Clark/Civil Beat/2024)

Maui Mayor Richard Bissen presented the Maui County Council on Monday with his proposed $1.7 billion budget for fiscal year 2025, which starts July 1. (Cammy Clark/Civil Beat/2024)

Gov. Josh Green announced in late March that he would not do a moratorium on short-term vacation rentals on Maui since enough housing had been secured for fire survivors staying in hotels to move into, which he expected to happen by July. (David Croxford/Civil Beat/2024)

The Legislature will finalize the state spending plan in April. House and Senate drafts included hundreds of millions of dollars for Maui, which Speaker Scott Saiki discussed at a press conference in March. (Kevin Fujii/Civil Beat/2024)

Hawaii Division of Forestry and Wildlife fire protection forester Michael Walker, left, Hawaii Wildfire Management Organization Co-Executive Director Elizabeth Pickett and Maui Fire Chief Brad Ventura spoke to hundreds of wildfire organization personnel at the Wildland Urban Interface Conference in Reno, Nevada. (Thomas Heaton/Civil Beat/2024)

Puukukui mountain rises behind King Kamehameha III Elementary School’s temporary Pulelehua campus as teachers gathered before a ceremonial blessing in late March. The original school in Lahaina was burnt in the Aug. 8 fire, but a new facility was built in Kapalua for students to attend starting in April. (Kevin Fujii/Civil Beat/2024)