Alberta expats recount evacuation, devastation of Maui wildfires

Fuelled by a dry summer and strong winds from a passing hurricane, the fire started Tuesday and took Maui by surprise, racing through the historic town of Lahaina

Two days after the fires on Hawaii’s Maui island started, the reality of that “nightmare” set in for Katie O’Connor.

“I hadn’t shed any tears until this morning. We just feel like it’s a nightmare and that it can’t be happening,” she said Thursday.

“Especially Lahaina, when you see the photos, it’s like an apocalypse. It’s like you can’t even believe that it is all gone,” O’Connor told Global News. “And then I’m still looking out to palm trees and greenery behind me, but half an hour away, they have absolutely nothing.

“It’s just been devastating to see how quickly, especially through Lahaina, it has just wiped out the entire town.”

Fuelled by a dry summer and strong winds from a passing hurricane, the fire started Tuesday and took the island by surprise, racing through parched growth and neighbourhoods in the historic town of Lahaina, a tourist destination that dates to the 1700s and is the biggest community on the island’s west side.

O’Connor lives in Kihei, in south Maui. She and her husband moved there two years ago from Calgary.

She and her family faced an “emotional roller coaster” on Tuesday, when fires came very close to her home.

“Around 9:00 p.m., we started hearing that the fire from upcountry was moving down the hill towards us in Kihei and that we would have to likely evacuate,” O’Connor said.