Milestone reached in the reopening of burned areas in Lahaina

LAHAINA >> For the first time since a wildfire leveled most of Lahaina town nearly three months ago, members of the intertwined Kahahane and Dizon families reunited Friday with neighbors, fond memories and a departed relative inside their seaside Mala neighborhood that was reduced largely to ash.

“Everybody coming home,” said Kamana Ng, as he drove his truck through a Hawaii National Guard checkpoint and down a portion of Front Street.

“Love you guys … Paele Boy, love you, brah,” Ng called out the window as he slowly passed neighbors whom, like members of his own family, were allowed to return to where they lived as Maui County gradually reopens sections of property to residents so they can grieve, retrieve personal effects that survived the inferno and find closure.

As Ng, a nephew of Paula Dizon Kahahane, rolled up on 1391 Olona Place, he noted for a personal video recording, “Our hale right here,” indicating where a red house had been in a community that long ago was a fishing village and home to many generations of Kaha­hanes and Dizons.

“Everybody grew up here,” said Paula’s husband, Shayne Kahahane, 68. “Generations of fishermen in our family.”

In parts of the same neighborhood that reopened Friday, other family members lost several homes to the Aug. 8 fire, and some were also visiting the remains of their property.

The Mala neighborhood together with nearby areas that reopened Friday, which collectively include nearly 400 addresses, represent the biggest zone reopened to date for residents and property owners in Lahaina.

Roughly 2,200 structures, including 3,500 homes and hundreds of businesses, were destroyed by the fire that killed at least 99 people.

By rough estimates, close to 50% of properties destroyed in Lahaina are now open for such returns before debris is cleared away by U.S. Army Corps of Engineers contractors or private contractors.

The first area to reopen was along Kaniau Road, near one edge of Lahaina’s burned footprint, on Sept. 25.

Since then, close to 25 more zones where people lived have reopened for residents and property owners. About 45 zones remain closed, though several of the biggest ones were not populated.

There also have been several sections of the ocean along Lahaina’s coast that have been reopened, including Launiupoko and Puamana beach parks, and a boat launch and wharf for recreational and commercial use.

Still, for some Lahaina residents who lost homes, the pace of reopening has been painfully slow.

Misti Kotter, who was born and raised in Lahaina and lost her home to the fire, said it’s been frustrating that all kinds of deadlines for fire evacuees to secure housing and qualify for financial assistance have passed before she’s allowed to return to her property where items she hopes to find include her wife’s wedding ring and the cremated ashes of her grandparents and her best friend.

“I understand that it takes a long time to clean up everything to get it prepared to this point, but to me it’s crazy we have deadlines to sign up for Red Cross but I haven’t even been able to legally go back to my house,” Kotter said Thursday.

Kotter’s wife, Olivia, added, “It also feels like this should have happened before the reopening of (West Maui) tourism.”

One section of West Maui hotels, where several thousand fire evacuees are living, reopened for tourists Oct. 8, and two remaining areas are to reopen Wednesday.

The Kotters were allowed to return to their property Friday.

Before burned parts of Lahaina can be reopened, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency must finish removing household hazards, which can include pressurized fuel cylinders, electric or hybrid vehicle batteries, solvents, pesticides, oils and materials thought to have asbestos.

The EPA on Thursday said this work has been completed on more than 1,300 parcels and is over 85% done. Full completion is expected sometime in December, in part because remaining parcels include more challenging remnants of multistory apartment buildings.

Tamara Paltin, a Maui County Council member representing Lahaina, said at a Thursday news conference that the pace of reopening burned properties to residents was initially very slow but has picked up.

Still, there is no public timetable for reopening remaining areas, and Paltin said she has heard from constituents that they would like to at least know what the order will be for reopening still-closed zones.

A known order, Paltin said, would help people prepare or even return to Maui if they left.

On Friday, county officials announced that three more areas would open Monday.

In the Mala neighborhood Friday, Ng said he can’t complain about the county’s burn zone reopening pace given all the logistics involved, which include the hazard removal work, issuing passes, providing personal protective equipment and having volunteers from nonprofit organizations available to assist returnees with search work and supplies if they want it.

“They going as fast as they can,” he said.

Ng and seven other family members returned to what they call “Mama house” — originally a single-story home that his aunt’s mother, Anna Dizon, bought in 1973. Later, a two-story addition was made, and the home was most recently shared by Ng along with three siblings of his aunt Paula — Liz Azbill, Chris Dizon and Vance Dizon.

The biggest goal of the day Friday for the eight Kahahane and Dizon family members at 1391 Olona Place was to find Gary.

More specifically, the cremated remains of Liz’s late husband, Gary Azbill, that were in a blue ceramic urn prior to the fire.

Before the search got underway, Noe Ahia, founder of Maui Medic Healers Hui, stopped by and embraced Ng’s aunt Paula, who cried on Ahia’s shoulder.

“Auwe auntie,” Ahia said soothingly amid her own tears. “Auwe, auwe, auwe, auwe. Ooh, I know. Let it out.”

Ahia asked Aunt Paula what was her favorite memory from the house long owned by her mother, who died in 2022. “The family gatherings,” said Paula, 69. “Lot of babies all born.”

A prayer in Hawaiian followed, led by Ahia and Ng. And before Ahia went to go help others in the neighborhood, she left Paula with one more comforting thought.

“Auntie, I want you to think about the day this aina is green again,” Ahia said. “This aina will always be home for your ohana.”

As the search for personal items was about to begin, Chris Dizon interjected some humor by pretending to check for mail in the mailbox, which was still standing despite a wood post.

“Got mail?” Dizon said. “No mail.”

Later, Dizon found several ceramic figurines, among other things for the family to keep.

Ng recovered a jade ring from his grandfather, and a somewhat scorched watch passed down from Gary.

“So awesome babe,” said Stacey Curimao, Ng’s girlfriend. “I told you you would find those.”

Ng also retrieved a whale bone palaua, a crescent-­shaped neck ornament, passed down from his grandfather.

As for the effort to find Gary’s remains, family members took turns digging through ash in the vicinity of where the urn was believed to have come to rest as the house fell down in flames.

The urn had been moved from the living room to an upstairs bathroom tub to give it more protection from the fire as family members fled the house.

Shayne Kahahane, Paula’s husband, theorized which way the house fell from remaining elements. But no tub was evident.

“I didn’t know the fire was this intense,” he said. “There’s no tub.”

Approaching two hours into the search, Ng identified a marble-sized piece of ceramic thought to be part of the urn, which refocused the search.

Awhile later, Curimao unearthed blackened pieces of a tub, including the drain fitting, from below thick ash. Yet no more urn pieces could be found, and so Ng sifted ash in the focus area believed to contain Gary’s remains into a bag and then into a decorative box.

“Here he is — Gary right here,” Ng told next-door neighbor Bob Rocco, referencing the box contents.

After the downing of some whiskey shots to a toast following close to four hours of work, family members packed up equipment, exchanged greetings with more neighbors and headed out with the intention to one day rebuild.

“This is our ’hood,” Ng said on the drive out. “Forever Mala.”

TO DONATE

The Kahahane and Dizon families have a GoFundMe campaign to raise money for rebuilding their home at 808ne.ws/3QBh53O.