WAILUKU, Hawaii – Among all that Kimo Kirkman lost in one of the devastating fires on the island of Maui, he said the worst was losing his father’s ashes.
“I wanted to keep it forever,” she said, her voice shaking with emotion. “Now it’s just on the ground with all the other ashes. And that was probably the hardest.”
“It was my only prized possession,” Kirkman added. “That was it. You know, everything else was, it didn’t mean anything.”
Kirkman and his wife, Steffani, were not in Lahaina when the fire, fueled by high winds, tore through the town on the west of the island on Tuesday.
Images taken by drone two days later showed burned-out buildings, rows of houses and cars covered in soot and near-devastation of the city, home to 13,000 people.
Although they lost their home, Steffani Kirkman said they were “beyond grateful” that the younger of their two daughters, ages 22 and 20, made it out alive. Her oldest daughter moved to South Carolina just a week ago.
Her husband said their youngest daughter “was on the highway, watching everything burn, and we said, ‘Get out of there, turn around, get out of there.'”
His wife added that their daughter is a surfer and can step on the water, so they advised her to come closer so that she could jump into the ocean as a last resort.
“People did it and that was their last option, and they still didn’t get it,” Kirkman said.
The US Coast Guard reported that several people had been rescued after jumping into the Pacific Ocean to escape the flames.
Kirkman said her daughter was staying with a family friend and they feared the family’s dogs had perished in the flames.
He said he was using devices to track the animals, but their movements stopped Tuesday afternoon. “That’s when the fire swept through the city,” she explained.
The couple said they prayed that the animals would die peacefully from smoke inhalation.
As the death toll rose to 55, Maui County said in a statement that the Lahaina fire was 80% controlled as firefighters had secured the perimeter of the burned forest areas. The Pulehu fire, about 20 miles east of Lahaina, was 70% contained, the statement added.
Steffani Kirkman said that on Lahaina’s main street “it was all wooden structures and it hadn’t rained since May,” so everything was dry.
The couple said they had lived on the island for 20 years but were planning to return to the mainland next month, so all their things were packed up and waiting for a shipping container.
“Three weeks too late,” said Steffani Kirkman, adding that there were people who “lost a lot more.”
Kirkman said they moved to Lahaina when their daughters were born, “so they could raise them in a small town.”
“For them it is also devastating, because they have lost everything,” added his wife. “His hometown of his has disappeared.”
