This historic Hawaiian town burned to the ground. Now there’s hope for an authentic restoration

By Martha Shade, CNN

(CNN) — One year after fires tore through Lahaina, Maui, killing 102 people and wiping out the town that was once the center of the Hawaiian Kingdom, the last of the debris is still being sorted through.

Many Lahaina residents remain homeless, and all the houses and businesses destroyed in the fire have yet to be rebuilt. Some developers have used the tragedy as a business opportunity, approaching residents to buy their land, stoking fears the community will be overrun by predatory investors.

But as the town begins to heal and looks to the future, there is also hope among residents that something good might come from all the tragedy – a re-landscaped, more fire-resistant Lahaina that is safer for residents and a restored downtown that honors its Native Hawaiian past and commemorates one of the most sacred sites in Hawaiian history.

Venice of the Pacific

When the first Polynesians arrived on Lahaina’s shores they found a lush landscape filled with abundant fresh water. In 1802, King Kamehameha made Lahaina the capital of Hawaii, building a brick palace in the center of a 17-acre wetland and surrounding it with carefully tended agricultural fields and taro patches.

When the first Europeans arrived, they marveled at mountain slopes shaded by breadfruit trees and the freshwater streams running through town, giving it the nickname “the Venice of the Pacific.”

Lahaina would see many incarnations – from sleepy fishing village to royal capital. In the 1800’s it was the center of the Pacific whaling trade, and after that it became a plantation town. In modern times, Lahaina became a town known for tourism, specifically for its beloved Front Street with waterside restaurants, stores and a famous banyan tree.

That last incarnation of Lahaina, the town that burned down on August 8, 2023, was the only one most people outside Hawaii are familiar with.

“Like a baseball field over the Vatican”

In the center of Lahaina, underneath an abandoned baseball field, are the remains of Moku‘ula, a sacred island that was once the site of a royal palace and the seat of the Hawaiian Kingdom. The island was surrounded by wetlands and taro patches.

But paradise was lost. In 1826, mosquitoes were introduced by a whaling ship. In 1845, King Kamehameha III moved the capital from Lahaina to Honolulu and Moku‘ula fell into disrepair. And when the first plantations moved into Lahaina, they began to divert much of the water from downtown Lahaina to their fields full of thirsty sugar cane plants. The flowing waters of the Lahaina wetlands became a stagnant breeding ground for mosquitoes. In 1914, the whole area was filled in and a baseball field was built on top of the royal palace.

“It’s like putting a baseball field over the Vatican,” says Janet Six, Principal Archeologist for the County of Maui.

Restoring a sacred royal island

Community efforts to restore Moku‘ula have been going on for years. Now, as Lahaina is rebuilt from scratch, Hawaii’s governor and Maui’s mayor are pledging to make it happen.

What’s not clear is exactly what a restored Moku‘ula would look like, how it can be done in a culturally sensitive way, and whether it should even be open to visitors since the site is so sacred to Hawaiians.

“[Historically] no one was allowed on the island. This is the whole thing about restoring it. Who are you letting stomp all over this place?” asks Six. “Cuz I’m sure the pharaohs didn’t exactly think Giza plateau was gonna become a bunch of people riding camels, eating ice cream.”

Kepa Maly, a cultural ethnographer who has been interviewing residents about rebuilding Lahaina, says the people who live in Lahaina – specifically the ones who have lived on the land the longest – should make the decisions about restoring cultural sites.

“This is a very Hawaiian point of view, indicating that the first voices to speak, should be those who remain on the land,” says Maly.

Reclaiming history

When the last of the plantations closed, says Six, Lahaina decided to go all-in on tourism.

“So in the 1960s they come up with the whaling concept, decide they’re going to make whaling the big focal point. So they took some of the buildings…and they made a historic district.”

“Whaling was such a short, small portion of the legacy of Lahaina. It was really about 50 years. And it wasn’t a really great 50 years because with the whalers came venereal disease and raucous debauchery.”

“The Venice of the Pacific” became known as “Rotten Row.”

“When people tell me Lahaina is gone, I’m like ‘No, the most recent iteration of Lahaina is gone,’” says Six.

The perfect storm

“People say: ‘I can’t believe Lahaina burned down!’ I can’t believe it didn’t burn down sooner,” says Six. “Because it almost burned down in 1919. It almost burned down in 2018.”

Water rights expert Jonathan Scheuer says the legal structure of ancient Hawaii originated from the regulation of water, where no one owned water but it was managed for the common good.

When the plantations left Lahaina, developers sent the water that had been diverted from Lahaina to resorts, golf courses and a luxury subdivision to the south of town. With the wetlands gone, a dry downtown Lahaina had less protection from wildfires.

The nearby abandoned sugarcane fields soon filled with highly flammable, non-native grasses.

“It was a perfect storm,” say Six. “You had fallow fields, an antiquated grid system and you had the legendary Kaua‘ula winds, winds that come racing down the mountain. These winds come off the mountains at 90 to 150 miles per hour, that’s why people couldn’t out-run the flames. It was a blowtorch; it had lots of fuel.”

Native resource management

“Hawaiians were really good resource managers, ” Six says.

“The thing is, in the west we have this nature-culture dichotomy. You have to throw that out in Hawaii. Where we see resources, they see relatives. Is it natural or is it cultural? You can’t tease them apart.”

It’s important, Six says, to address all the reasons Lahaina burned down before it’s all reconstructed. “What happened? Where’s the water going? Do we have enough water? There’s a big movement to do native reforestation, using plants that are less likely to combust in a fire.”

Hahai no ka ua i ka ulu la‘au (Rains follow the forest)

There is a Hawaiian saying that Kepa Maly likes to quote: “rains follow the forest.”

When Hawaiian plants were removed during plantation times, the mountain sides became eroded, barren and eventually –like those abandoned sugar cane fields– filled with flammable non-native grasses.

Restoring native trees and plants to Lahaina’s mountainsides could help control those sources of fuel.

Noa Kekuewa Lincoln, a professor at the University of Hawaii who specializes in indigenous crops and cropping systems, says when the forests were intact, a cloud bridge provided shade and cooled temperatures. Those clouds were likely associated with increased rainfall. “All those things would have contributed to the Lahaina landscape being considerably wetter than it is today. I certainly think that’s a place to start in terms of what we can do today.”

“Reforesting those upper slopes has a tremendous potential to enhance the overall landscape resilience of Lahaina… which then further power the aquifier, further power the groundwater springs that Lahaina was famous for. A lot could be done to restore those natural groundwater components,” Lincoln says.

“It would be beautiful to be walking through Lahaina town and have big inland lakes and canals. I think that would be awesome.”

Preventing fires across Hawaii

After the wildfire destroyed Lahaina, a group of Maui educators traveled to Oahu to visit the Malama Learning Center, hoping to learn more about native plants that could reduce fire risk in the future.

Pauline Sato, the Program Director for the center, considers that one of her group’s main missions: giving people practical solutions, and showing them exactly how to plant native trees, bushes and vegetation that may help prevent future disasters. For instance, Sato has learned through trial and error that it’s frequently better to pack certain native plants closer together to provide the most effective shade and fire-resistance.

“We need to find natural solutions to these problems that are just going to get worse,” Sato says. “It’s just going to get drier: prolonged droughts, less rain, more fires.”

Sato says cooperation will be crucial since Hawaii’s large fire-prone areas often have several different owners. “We need to work with bigger landowners, the government, and all the other agencies but we can’t depend on them to do it alone. We, as a community, need to be proactive about it.”

“That’s another thing we to try teach people: We have to plan ahead,” says Sato. “And the trees we do have, and if they are good shade trees, we need to thank the people who did that, because they were thinking in advance. We need to do the same thing for future generations.”

Historic corridor

Residents and community leaders agree that the first priority for Lahaina is housing displaced residents and restoring small businesses in downtown Lahaina. After that, the town can decide what cultural sites to restore.

Rising sea levels and modern safety concerns suggest a newly restored Lahaina might not be built as close to the water as it was before. But there is precedent for rebuilding in a way that’s both safer for residents and still aesthetically pleasing. After deadly tsunamis wiped out part of the town of Hilo on the Big Island of Hawaii, the town was rebuilt, placing the main business district and all its structures farther from the waterfront. A buffer zone of parks, lagoons and recreational areas now line Hilo’s waterfront.

The governor’s office and the Maui mayor’s office are both pledging that some sort of “historic corridor” will recognize Lahaina’s royal past.

If part of Moku‘ula is restored, Lahaina could even seek to a UNESCO World Heritage Site designation but only, Six insists, if that’s what the locals want.

“There’s a movement to restore King Kamehameha’s taro patch. Personally, I would love to see a taro patch in the middle of Lahaina,” she says.

“So much has been lost and now these gifts are coming back. You can see Lahaina’s returning. Native plants are coming back. For many of the Hawaiians that I work with, it’s very hopeful in a time of despair.”

Lincoln agrees. “I don’t want to minimize the tragedy,” he says, “but it is a cleansing of the land, a fresh start. There’s an opportunity to correct past mistakes.”

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