Hawaii Fire and Massive Bayan Tree

red · August 10, 2023, 10:27:52 AM

I was on Maui in 1994 for my Honeymoon and we visited Lahaina a fishing village . I can remember a Massive Banyan Tree that was imported from India and planted in 1873 .

Lahaina is being reported as complete devastation one report says the tree was charred but maybe salvageable
It's probably to early to tell

doc henderson · August 10, 2023, 10:34:54 AM

I do not know, but they seem to have before and after detailed drone pics on the news. do you remember where in the town it was located? there was a group of trees or a very large canopy seen in the pic.

doc henderson · August 10, 2023, 10:38:02 AM

Lahaina's Historic Banyan Tree Burned In Wildfire - Videos from The Weather Channel

sorry Red.

jimbarry · August 10, 2023, 10:42:02 AM

Tragic loss of life there. :-[ Everything else can be rebuilt.

red · August 10, 2023, 10:44:48 AM

It is in the center of town by the Court House one very large tree . . Massive

doc henderson · August 10, 2023, 10:50:06 AM

maybe wood can be salvaged to make items to raise money for the community. hard to get logs out or sawmills in. I am not familiar with this type of tree/wood.

doc henderson · August 10, 2023, 11:04:11 AM

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banyan

I hope it survives/regrows.

Tom King · August 10, 2023, 06:57:32 PM

I remember it well too. That tree was the best memory of being in Lahaina. It just seems unbelievable to me that paradise can come to that. I spent a lot of time in Maui back in the '80's and '90's windsurfing. The fire at Notre Dame hit me hard, but this hit me harder, and that was before I even heard about the deaths.

I had gotten tired of it because of the distance to get there, and traffic on the island got worse every year, but I still have a good place for it in my memories.

blackfoot griz · August 10, 2023, 08:37:04 PM

The first time I was in Maui and Lahaina was 2001. I prefer to go to new places, but, this place was on the radar for a return trip. I was there in late January and early February this year. I'm glad I did. The devastation and loss of life is horrific.

Walnut Beast · August 11, 2023, 12:14:55 AM

Absolutely devastating! Got married in Hawaii and stayed at the Hilton resort for eight days outside of town there. Was in and around that town several times and admired the tree several times. Hard to believe everything got leveled up to the shore line. The same place my wife was surfing there. Prayers for all there!

Ianab · August 11, 2023, 12:35:09 AM

What surprised me is how dry that part of the Island actually is. Had a look around on Google maps, and the East side of the Island is basically green jungle / rain forest and looks totally fire resistant. The East side where the fires are looks like dry scrub and grass, almost a desert look to it. You can imagine how a wind driven fire would race through it. I can understand how that happens with a "rain shadow" on the downwind side of Mountains, we see that even here in some parts of NZ, but I didn't realise how pronounced it was there.

I'm more accustomed to Rarotonga, which is a smaller place, not big enough to have a dry and wet side (it's wet and green all round).

Tom King · August 11, 2023, 08:06:20 AM

The trade winds push moisture up the volcano every day on the windward side. You can see the clouds building up high all day. Every evening, as the Sun sets, the weight of the clouds bring them down the slope, and it rains some. The same sort of thing happens on some of the other islands too, depending mostly on the size of the mountains.

The old timers over there, over towards Hana, can be seen in evenings walking naked in the rain with their clothes tucked up under their hats until the rain is finished. Unfortunately, they're not the ones you might like to see walking naked.

That's why the windward side is the wet side.

Parts of the lee side are almost desert because the huge mountain blocks the moisture from going over, while on the other side are some of the wettest spots on Earth. The desert part is pretty large, but I don't think there is any population in that part.

That part over towards Lahaina did get some rain throughout the year normally, but not like the rainforest side. It's not completely blocked from the trades by the mountain. They were in a drought that no one had ever seen before-very unusual.

I still have some friends over there, but they live on the other side of the island. They were well aware of what was going on though.

firefighter ontheside · August 11, 2023, 11:59:26 AM

Sad to lose historic trees. Even sadder to lose so much human life. The death toll is up to 55 and I'm sure it will go higher. FEMA has sent task forces from Washington and Nevada. Two members of my task force have deployed to be part of the management team. Numerous human remains finding dogs have been sent. Sadly they will probably be needed. They are saying it will be the deadliest natural disaster in the history of the state.

Walnut Beast · August 11, 2023, 02:20:25 PM

Tom King have you been on or seen the train there. I could see it from my room at the Hilton till we moved to the ocean view room

Tom King · August 11, 2023, 04:48:04 PM

Pam and I haven't, but one time we carried Pam's Mom to babysit our Son, who was about 5 at the time, and they went on it.

I said earlier I got tired of it, but after thinking about it more I think we just got busy raising our children.

The numbers have to get a lot worse. The 55 were just the ones they found outside of buildings.

Walnut Beast · August 11, 2023, 06:44:15 PM

The aerial footage is unbelievable.

They are optimistic that the old tree might make it. They are hoping it's root system is really good

blackfoot griz · August 11, 2023, 11:05:32 PM

This was a pic of the Lahaina Banyon tree taken in Jan. 2023. With a photo bomber

Ron Wenrich · August 12, 2023, 04:53:35 AM

I am scheduled for a cruise to Hawaii at the end of November. We are supposed to be in Lahaina on Dec 1. We'll see if they change the itinerary.

firefighter ontheside · August 12, 2023, 10:08:21 AM

I guarantee they won't be stopping in Lahaina. It's all gone. Death toll is at 80 and probably will still go up.

Cedarman · August 12, 2023, 07:52:34 PM

Correct me if I have bad information. I was reading that in times past the burned area was in pineapple and sugar cane plantations and was farmed on a regular basis. But times changed and the land went fallow with lots of grasses and shrubs taking over. With the dry weather there was a lot of dry biomass just waiting for a spark. As in our forests here, past management or lack of it determines a future outcome that may not be good for people. Could this have been prevented if the vegetation had been mulched down on a regular basis in strategic areas?

Tom King · August 12, 2023, 09:54:18 PM

I don't think anyone there today has ever seen the conditions as dry as they were. The bad thing was that was combined with the severe winds that dropped so many power poles starting a bunch of fires all over.

If it had ever happened before, I expect they would have known to cut the power off at a certain wind speed. With so much power out because of the downed lines, they couldn't do much of anything.

Walnut Beast · August 13, 2023, 12:43:49 AM

Quote from: Cedarman on August 12, 2023, 07:52:34 PM
Correct me if I have bad information. I was reading that in times past the burned area was in pineapple and sugar cane plantations and was farmed on a regular basis. But times changed and the land went fallow with lots of grasses and shrubs taking over. With the dry weather there was a lot of dry biomass just waiting for a spark. As in our forests here, past management or lack of it determines a future outcome that may not be good for people. Could this have been prevented if the vegetation had been mulched down on a regular basis in strategic areas?

I think so but it's like everywhere else unless bad things happen nothing ever gets done.

Tom King · August 13, 2023, 12:37:17 PM

It's almost impossible to get people to spend their money on something that might happen. Especially when it's something that has never happened before where they are.

This required several things to happen at the same time-unusually dry conditions that no one was used to there, extreme winds that turned fires started by fallen power lines in many places into a giant blow torch, and happening while people were asleep in their homes.

I'm not sure that anyone had ever predicted that this was even a remote possibility. Even if there was such a person, only a very few would have believed it, so no politician would propose any policy to account for it.

Ianab · August 13, 2023, 09:08:34 PM

Quote from: Tom King on August 13, 2023, 12:37:17 PMI'm not sure that anyone had ever predicted that this was even a remote possibility.

That's the thing. You plan for the disasters that you think are more likely to occur. With only limited knowledge of the area I wouldn't have expected a firestorm like actually occurred. Tsunami / Earthquake / Volcano / Hurricane they probably had plans in place to react to those things.

We don't have a wildfire or tsunami plan in our town. Earthquake or Volcano? Yeah, there are plans in place to try and cope with those (Take cover or "Run AWAY from the Lava" respectively) Possibly not great plans, but you only have limited options there, and they are judged the most likely to occur)