How a historic Lahaina neighborhood became ‘ground zero’ for the Maui wildfire

An NBC News analysis following the Maui wildfire found that at least 43 of the 100 victims on the official list of Lahaina’s dead lived in Kuhua Camp.

LAHAINA, Hawaii — A shrill smoke alarm startled Manny Ceralde awake from an afternoon nap in his West Maui home. 

Manny looked out the window and saw part of his neighbor’s roof break off and disappear into the swirling blackness swallowing the sky. 

He screamed to run to the truck, prompting his daughter, 14; his sister, 50; and his mother, 75, to scramble out the front door. But the shouting meant little to Manny’s autistic son, 19, who wandered back into his bedroom. 

As Manny guided his son outside, he sensed he had only moments to get his family out of their neighborhood alive. 

Kuhua Camp — once temporary housing for sugar cane workers — had grown over more than a century into a cramped subdivision of low-slung homes in the foothills just east of historic Lahaina Town. 

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/lahaina-maui-wildfire-deaths-kuhua-camp-ground-zero-rcna136361

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