Maui Wildfires Leave Restaurant Workers Devastated—And Grappling With Tourism

By Ali Francis

As Naiwi Teruya watched flames engulf his Lāhainā apartment on the evening of August 8, his first thought was, “I need to get to my kids,” says the 35-year-old executive chef of Down the Hatch, a casual seafood joint that once stood on Lāhainā’s iconic Front Street. Teruya pushed through scorching winds and dodged dangling power lines in the darkness as he headed north on foot. “People were crying and screaming, you could hear things exploding, and I felt like the fire was chasing me,” he says.

Four miles later, Teruya was able to stop and breathe. Surveying the luxury hotels that line the sandy shores of Kāʻanapali, a crescent-shaped beach town beloved by visitors, he was struck by the realization that while his home and restaurant were gone, “all the tourists were sipping mai tais” at the resort bars. “I was looking for my family, with literally nothing but the clothes on my back,” says Teruya, whose Native Hawaiian family has lived on Maui for generations. “The resentment was heavy.”

Even before the fires, two Mauis existed: One where locals, who have long mourned losing their land to colonization— historic Lāhainā is where the monarch who united all the Hawaiian islands, Kamehameha the Great, established his kingdom—often struggle to find housing and work multiple jobs, usually in the restaurant and tourism industries, to make ends meet. And one intensely developed for visitors, who come to dine on fresh fish, snorkel in jewel-toned waters, and watch a traditional Hawaiian hula.

It’s the latter Maui, according to some of the locals I spoke with for this story, that turned the Lāhainā surrounds, once a lush wetland, into bone-dry fuel for the flames. “Without placing specific blame, this whole thing is related to poor land management, water diversion, and climate change,” says Lee Anne Wong, whose restaurant, Papa‘aina, was housed in Lāhainā’s historic Pioneer Inn and burned to the ground. Experts say the proliferation of nonnative grasses—brought to the island by sugar and pineapple barrons in the 18th century—combined with gusts from Hurricane Dora passing about 500 miles south, created the destructive conditions.

Some 115 of the town’s roughly 12,700 residents have been confirmed dead, while search efforts for the estimated 1,000 still missing continue as another dangerous fire quietly burns just 25 miles away. Maui’s profound reliance on tourism dollars—which represent 70 percent of the island’s economy, by some estimates—means that many grieving locals must continue working as they reckon with immense loss. Tori, a 35-year-old property manager who requested that Bon Appétit withhold her last name to avoid repercussions at her job, spends her days pleasing tourists, then her nights volunteering to feed the displaced.

‘Two days ago I got a call where one guest didn’t want to reschedule, but she did want to know if her kids would be able to snorkel because she heard there are dead bodies in the water,” says Tori. The client also asked multiple times if her family would still be able to go to a lūʻau, says Tori. “And I was like, ‘You want Hawaiian people to dance for you right now?’”

Most of the locals I spoke with expressed a dire need for visitors and their dollars. “We want tourists to come back,” says Kalei Ducheneau, the 30-year-old executive chef at Lāhainā’s Māla Ocean Tavern, one of the only buildings left standing on Front Street. But it’s another thing to see tourists hop off a plane and start snapping selfies with the Lāhainā town sign. “There’s a difference between coming and supporting small businesses on other parts of the island, and driving to Lāhainā because it’s some historical event,” Ducheneau says. “Being there is just going to interfere with people who are trying to take care of the ones that are hurting.”

Maui residents immediately sprung into action as fires continued to burn, leading local relief efforts across the island. “We know that the economic impacts are coming,” says Isaac Bancaco, the 42-year-old executive chef of Pacific’o on the Beach in Lāhainā, who lost his house and workplace in the fires. “But, we’ve got to help our community first.” Under Chef Hui, a grassroots organization founded in 2018 that aims to increase opportunities for the culinary community in Hawai‘i, Bancaco, Wong, and others in the food community set up a meal distribution hub at the University of Hawaiʻi Maui College, partnering with World Central Kitchen and Common Ground Collective to cook up to 10,000 meals per day. Bancaco says, “If we’re not strong as a community, we can’t service any tourists.”

The following consists of five interviews, which have been woven together and lightly edited for length and clarity.

At 9 a.m., Maui County officials told locals that the fire had been contained. By 3 p.m. that afternoon, flames had spread across 1,000 acres and forced authorities to close the Lāhainā Bypass as the almost 13,000 residents scrambled to escape. By 5 p.m., the situation was desperate: People were abandoning gridlocked cars and fleeing town on foot, while some families were jumping into the ocean or resort pools to avoid the fire.

Naiwi Teruya, executive chef of Down the Hatch: I went into work early on Tuesday morning, when the power had gone out, to make sure we weren’t losing too much product. The wind was gnarly. We weren’t sure if we could open, but there was no “get out of town” kind of message.

Later that afternoon, as I was driving home, I saw shingles flying off roofs and smoke in the distance. All of a sudden it was pitch black. There were branches and trash flying all around me, and power lines falling down. The wind got so strong and so hot. It was like a war zone. I went to check on some neighbors and when I looked back toward my apartment, there were 10-foot flames behind it.

Isaac Bancaco, executive chef, Pacific’o on the Beach: We had a wedding, so I was up early because the power had gone out. Whenever that happens, I usually ride my bike around town to see how many poles are down—that gives me a good indication of when the power is going to come back on. But as I weaved through the streets in Lāhainā, I could see that the wind was just going to get stronger.

I picked up one of our externs—she doesn’t have any local family or any modes of transportation other than her two feet—and we went in my truck to monitor the fire. When it first started, it was probably a half a mile wide—in the shape of a pyramid—and it just exponentially grew. The smoke got darker, blacker, thicker. It blocked out the sun and looked like nightfall.

Tori, vacation property manager: I was at work, and my normal 10-minute drive home took three hours. There were power lines down everywhere. I’ve lived in Lāhainā for 20 years and I’ve never, ever seen wind like that.

By the time I got home, our neighbor’s house had been pulled up from the roots and flew down the mountain. My house is at the top of a hill and I watched the flames race into town. It was like a horror movie—of people that you love dying and homes being destroyed.

Kalei Ducheneau, executive chef, Māla Ocean Tavern: When the fires started, I was home with my family in Lāhainā. My landlord arrived and said, “Hey, somebody came to the driveway and said we’ve got five minutes to get out, so grab what you need.”

We tried to go north, but there were cars on the road caught on fire. I’m born and raised here, I know how it works: You got one way in and one way out most of the time. So we turned around and tried to go south, but there were a million cars trying to do the same thing. We were essentially blocked in. Eventually, I was able to get my family toward the safe zone a lot earlier than most.

Lee Anne Wong, owner, Papa‘aina: I’d flown to O‘ahu Tuesday morning for my Koko Head Cafe staff party. My Papa‘aina chef texted me that the power was out. I was like, “Well, sit tight, maybe it will come back on.” We can’t really afford to lose a day of business, you know?

I didn’t really sleep that night. I was texting with my staff, like, “Hey, did you see this person?” It was literally the game of coconut wireless, because the cell phone towers were down. Somebody tagged me in a photo of the Pioneer Inn and my restaurant on fire. And I was like, “Oh, okay. All right. Well, that’s hard to see.”

Decimated restaurants and hospitality businesses in and around Lāhainā town represented a dire economic reality for now unemployed residents. Others learned that their houses had turned to ash and debris. Many are still on the search for missing friends and family.

Naiwi Teruya: Lāhainā is one giant graveyard right now. Many of my family members have been pulling bodies out from the fire, and it’s easily in the hundreds. There’s children missing but the volunteers are having a hard time finding them because their bodies are so small.

The grief hits everybody differently. When I go into town now, I think to myself, I’m not going to cry this time. But I can’t help it. That feeling of loss people have right now, about the destruction of this town, is a feeling Native Hawaiians had every day of our lives before the fire. It’s the same feeling we get when we look at hotels, and we look at development.

My house is gone. And our restaurant was below street level, so we have three stories of other businesses on top of ours right now, in ashes. We are not going to be employing anyone anymore because there’s no money, and there’s no work.

Isaac Bancaco: Our restaurant burned down and I lost my entire house. There’s some cement structures still standing, like our shower. But everything else…there’s absolutely nothing. The fire was so intense that even our metal jewelry melted. I think “numb” is probably the best adjective for all of us.

There are going to be 1,000 people that have perished. The vast majority of them are so unrecognizable they’re not going to be able to be identified. I feel lucky in comparison. My immediate family’s fine. My youngest sister gave birth just after the fire. So, my family’s growing while others are shrinking.

Tori: My house is still standing. The fire didn’t jump the highway. They just reopened it to go back to the West side. But I don’t want to see the town, to be honest. I don’t think I’m ready to see—I mean, there are still bodies everywhere.

Kalei Ducheneau: Starting from scratch is so hard in Hawai‘i; we hardly make ends meet, no matter what profession we’re in. I’ve never been comfortable in that way, and I’m still not. I work six days a week. And two days ago, I had to check my bank account to make sure we have enough money to feed the kids.

Fortunately, I live in an area that was not burned down, so I have my house. My wife was able to go there today, though, and everything that we have is covered in black soot. I have two asthmatic children that both have hearing loss. So going back to the house is not going to be healthy for them.

Lee Anne Wong: Thankfully all our staff got out safely and they’re all accounted for. I had like $20,000 worth of knives and books in the space, and that’s the least of my concern. The bigger tragedy is just the magnitude of this, because we still don’t even know how many are lost. And the amount of fuel and metal and everything that burned and has leaked into the soil and into the ocean—the whole harbor exploded, all those boats exploded and sank—this is an ecological disaster too.

On any day, about one third of Maui’s population is made up of tourists. Their constant presence creates the majority of private-sector jobs across the island. But right now, visitors offer a particularly stark reminder of what locals have lost—and what they potentially still stand to lose if tourist dollars disappear.

Naiwi Teruya: While I was walking from Lāhainā to find my kids in the north, I joined up with some friends and we went through Kāʻanapali. As we were walking through the hotels, all the tourists were sipping mai tais. They were having a great time. I was with my cousin by that point and he just lost his shit.

Lee Anne Wong: We need to send out a message that Maui is open for business. This is way worse than Covid ever was. We’re going to experience not only a huge economic downturn, but a total collapse, unless people start spending money on the island.

At the same time we have tourists who have been taking meals from the World Central Kitchen. It’s like, those meals aren’t meant for you. Our goal is to feed everybody. But it’s that type of behavior that creates a bad feeling.

Tori: Most of the tourists reaching out right now are really kind. Hawaiʻi can’t survive without them. So, it’s one of those things where there’s a balance, and we definitely want respectful people to support us. We want people to come and have a good time and see how happy and full of love this place is. But we also need you to be sensitive to the experience that we’ve had.

I had a phone call the first morning after the fire, and this lady just started screaming at me that she was supposed to be here next month and she wanted a refund. I told her we could probably do it in eight to 10 business days and she was yelling, like, “That’s not soon enough.” When I told her that some of our team had just lost their homes or families, she was like, “Don’t you do that to me. I’m a part of this too. I’m losing $20,000.”

The disaster left an unquantifiable number of people without a place to live. As they sleep in county shelters, donated vacation rentals and hotel rooms, or homes of friends and strangers, community-led organizations are coming to their aid.

Isaac Bancaco: Once people started finding out my restaurant’s gone and my house is gone, the Chef Hui team I was volunteering with were like, “Holy shit, why are you still here?” I’m like, “I don’t even want to think about my personal life.” What else am I going to do?

Kalei Ducheneau: I don’t have money, but I do have time and I do have a lot of energy to feed and nourish people. So I’m volunteering at Sugar Beach Events [a luxury wedding and events venue in Kihei] to cook large amounts of food for first responders and locals.

Naiwi Teruya: I started helping the [citizen-run disaster relief organization] Maui Rapid Response right away, and I haven’t had a day off yet. We’ve all been working together collectively to distribute donations from major companies. I’ve been working the hub stations mostly, keeping them stocked with food, water, gas, clothes—anything and everything.

Lee Anne Wong: Every business, every chef, every restaurant has dropped what they were doing and devoted all their time and resources to feeding our community. We have a lot of lower-income families that have multigenerational homes close to the impact zone, and they don’t want to leave. Because they feel like, “Where are we going to go?” So we’re taking food to them.

Isaac Bancaco: We’re asking ourselves, How can we best put our resources and effort into knowing that every single mouth, every single meal, every single family matters? We’ve been so welcoming to all the tourists, everyone who comes to Hawai‘i, but now it’s time for FEMA, the government, to be hospitable to us.

Lee Anne Wong: We need our brothers and sisters in the culinary world to make comforting, nourishing food—stews, chilis, hearty vegetable soups—that can be frozen flat and shipped to us in a cooler. We’re actually working with Hawaiian Air Cargo to get those scheduled and delivered to us.

Kalei Ducheneau: We have enough people on the ground. I think people who want to help should just donate.