Maui Officials Sound Emergency Sirens And Evacuate Residents As Wildfire Threatens North Shore Town
The brushfire was about 4 acres when first reported Tuesday afternoon. Evacuation orders were lifted as of 6 p.m.
HONOLULU — Officials on Maui went door-to-door evacuating residents from a wildfire Tuesday and sounded emergency sirens.
The 380-acre fire was first reported near the north shore town of Pā‘ia at 1:30 p.m., officials said, and it was estimated to be 50% contained as of Wednesday morning.
“Leave immediately!” said one alert from Maui Emergency Management Agency. “There is a dangerous threat to life and property.”
Evacuation orders were lifted as of 6 p.m. on Tuesday, according to a county update.
Pā‘ia is a former sugar plantation town that has become popular with windsurfers. It is on the other side of the island from Lahaina, which was destroyed by a deadly wildfire in 2023.
Pā‘ia resident Rod Antone was trying to coordinate evacuation of his elderly parents. “It’s nerve-wracking,” he said. “Hopefully nothing happens to the neighborhood.”
Antone was working in a county building in Wailuku where he listened to radio updates but didn’t hear the sirens. In the hours before a wildfire engulfed the town of Lahaina in 2023, Maui County officials failed to activate sirens.
Antone noted that winds didn’t feel particularly strong Tuesday, unlike in August 2023 when wind-whipped flames burned Lahaina and left 102 people dead. But like Lahaina, Pā‘ia is surrounded by dry brush, he said.
The Maui Fire Department was using three helicopters to help fight the blaze. During the Lahaina fire, helicopters were grounded due to the strong winds.
Flames were not visible from a northern stretch of Holomua Road, but grey smoke could be seen billowing from the dry, yellow pasture to the southwest. The air smelled like a campfire for miles around.
In downtown Pā‘ia, a police officer directed traffic while a few people in swimsuits strolled west toward central Maui.
The American Red Cross set up evacuation sites at Hali‘imaile and Pukalani’s Hannibal Tavares community centers. Makawao’s Eddie Tam and Haʻikū community centers were still being prepped as of 4:30 p.m. and not yet open, the county said. The sites were closed later Tuesday as the fire’s forward progress was stopped.
When traffic out of Pā‘ia started building, Wayne Thibaudeau decided to open a gate to give motorists an alternate evacuation route. Thibaudeau is one of the owners of Pā‘ia Sugar Mill, which closed in 2000 and is being renovated.
The route takes motorists through old sugarcane fields.
There was a steady stream of “cars packed with people” using the route, he said.
A report on the Lahaina fire said that some back roads that could have provided an alternative escape were blocked by locked gates.
Firefighters spent the night monitoring the fire’s perimeter and addressing hot spots and flare ups, according to a statement released on Wednesday by Christopher Stankis, a spokesman for the Maui Fire Department.
The cause of the fire remained under investigation, according to the statement. One home was threatened but not burned Tuesday. No other structures were threatened.
Civil Beat’s coverage of Maui County is supported in part by a grant from the Nuestro Futuro Foundation.
