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There are many questions about when residents of the worst-hit parts of Lahaina might be able to come and survey what's left of their community. MAUI, Hawaii — When an inferno tore through Lahaina on the island of Maui, it reduced a historic and charming town to ash and rubble. But the fire left a red-roofed house seemingly untouched by the devastation around it. The owner of a “miracle house” in Lahaina that was spared from the devastating Maui wildfires says he feels uncomfortable with the description when so many of his neighbour’s homes were destroyed. According to the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA), the main way wildfires ignite homes is with small fires and embers, which are tiny pieces of burning wood or vegetation that float with the wind. And these small fires and embers don’t have to come from the main fire itself.
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The Millikins, who started living in Lahaina more than a decade ago, used to bicycle by the house and talk about what it would take to fix the sagging roof, the rotting lanai, the peeling paint. Experts say it was likely a little bit of all the above, but that one element of the home’s recent renovation is actually the most affordable and important thing people can do to try and protect their homes. "The world I knew is gone and will never come back, and my heart is broken." "They're part of our ohana," Millikin said, using the Hawaiian term for family. "And when this is all over, we're going to have them all there to celebrate that house."
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The so-called “Miracle House” has entranced the internet, where people are speculating about what could have spared the house. In truth, it’s probably due to a mix of factors, not least of which is luck. Earlier this month, a large, devastating fire in Maui—the second-largest island in Hawaii—caused at least 100 confirmed deaths so far, and left many people missing or injured in the town of Lahaina. The press has called it a “bush fire,” which is a term that refers to fires that burn through a specific kind of often arid landscape that has been stripped of some vegetation by development or industry. That doesn’t sound like the image of Hawaii that most of us conjure in our minds, but the islands have experienced a very hot, dry summer.
Photo: Why a Wooden House in Lahaina Was Spared in Maui Wildfires - Business Insider
Photo: Why a Wooden House in Lahaina Was Spared in Maui Wildfires.
Posted: Mon, 21 Aug 2023 07:00:00 GMT [source]
A mother raced to save her son from the Maui fires. She couldn't reach him
Multifamily home and commercial properties would need to go through this “major permit” process, which means Maui County might have to hold hundreds of public hearings. First, the Coastal Zone Management Act has been suspended for Lahaina under Gov. Josh Green’s Emergency Proclamation Relating To Wildfires, said Mary Alice Evans, director of the state Office of Planning and Sustainable Development. The office administers Hawaii’s CZMA, which governs much of Lahaina’s burn zone. Shoreline setbacks or a retreat from the water so far aren’t getting much traction under state and county planning efforts.
By intention or not, those changes jibe with wildfire guidance from the Colorado State Forest Service, which stresses the importance of steps such as reducing your home's ability to ignite. The house has roots dating to 1925 — it's believed to have been moved from another location on Maui. After Millikin and his wife bought it in 2021, they finished a restoration project in 2022. The project’s cost is just under $9 million and is being developed and managed by CNHA on land owned by Maui County. Wrap-around services, including financial literacy, will be provided by CNHA’s Kākoʻo Maui Relief & Aid Services Center, according to the announcement. Mayor Bissen gave special thanks to the Homeowners Association, which allowed more than one dwelling on each lot and a five year lease for the project.
The home's owners supposedly installed the river rock to stop the foundation of the house from being affected by the wet runoff that comes with watering traditional landscaping. In addition to special management areas, the coastal zone management statute governs shoreline setbacks. State law requires a setback of at least 40 feet from the shoreline and imposes restrictions, including a public hearing requirement, before most types of construction can happen in the setback zone. Working closely with the county and the local historic commission, they replaced the asphalt roof with heavy-gauge metal — the home would have originally had a roof of either wooden shake or thinner-grade corrugated tin, she said. They lined the ground with stones up to the drip line of the roof, which overhangs by 36 to 40 inches.
A few other aerial photos from Getty and the AP show sparse buildings that withstood the fires spread throughout the town. Millikin told the outlet that when they were doing renovations, they also put it in a commercial-grade steel roof and dug out old landscaping to replace it with river stones about a meter around the house. The latter is what likely made the biggest difference in the house's ability to withstand the flames, Michael Wara, director of the Climate and Energy Policy Program at the Stanford Wood Institute for the Environment, told Civil Beat. In the case of the miracle house, recent renovations made by the home’s owners likely played a role, according to reporting from Honolulu Civil Beat, a local nonprofit news organization.
'Miracle house' owner hopes it will serve as a base for rebuilding Lahaina
Millikin has spent much of the last week — in between anxious calls to check up on friends and neighbors — puzzling over why his house was somehow spared. The list also includes Harry, he said, who by virtue of his work on the house's roof has the right to park at the house and go surfing any time he wants to. She said as the family looks ahead, the plan is to eventually return to Lahaina when the time is right. “There was a lot of times where we had to think about whether or not we were going to leave the island and not be home anymore, because we didn’t know what was going to happen. We didn’t know when we had to leave the hotels,” she said, noting in one move, they were given just 24 hours notice.
New Maui shoreline setback rules were adopted by the Maui Planning Commission in November but have not been signed by the mayor. Those establish a shoreline setback of as much as 200 feet in some instances. But it’s not clear when or if Mayor Richard Bissen will sign those into law. There’s the potential application of historic preservation and environmental review laws to some projects, which could trigger the need for archaeological studies and environmental assessments or environmental impact statements, Abbott said.
This home, overseen by a Native Hawaiian carpenter who headed most construction projects for the Pioneer Mill Co., was built from California redwood, Millikin said, which has some natural fire-resistant properties. But so was the historic house next door, which burned completely in the Aug. 8 fire. Before fires ripped through Lahaina, the craftsman-inspired home at 271 Front St. didn’t stand out much in the neighborhood.
LAHAINA, Hawaii — On a section of Front Street in the town of Lahaina, every structure has been charred and replaced with squares of ash – except one. Right along the sea wall lies a single house with a red roof, green porch and a seemingly unharmed vehicle in a largely unscathed driveway. They removed the asphalt roof and installed a heavy-gauge metal one with an air pocket that allowed heat to escape. Photographs of Trip Milliken and Dora Atwater Millikin’s unscathed red-roofed home went viral as a rare beacon of hope after the destructive fires that wiped out much of Lahaina and left at least 115 dead. The NFPA says the most important areas to fireproof to protect your home are the home itself and the immediate five feet around it. You should keep the immediate five feet around your home a “non-combustible zone” by removing any flammable materials from it.
Many people live in homes where they don’t care for their lawns because they’re renters. It’s hard to keep track of local precipitation to find out when you should supplement with sprinklers. And people may buy homes with lawns they simply don’t know the details about. In the morning, a friend called and sent them a picture from a helicopter flyover of Lahaina. But there, in the midst of the destruction, was the seemingly untouched red roof of Millikin’s home.
After the renovation, the house was nominated to join the National Registry of Historical places. Identified as the Pioneer Mill Company/Lahaina Ice Company Bookkeeper's House, the dwelling was used by bookkeepers of a company that did everything from delivering ice and soda water to selling electric power to the town of Lahaina. Photos of the wooden house, standing intact while its neighbors were reduced to ashes, quickly became an online fascination. Millikin was in Massachusetts when the Aug. 8 fire broke out in Lahaina. But the next day, he received a picture – in the middle of dozens of piles of ash stood his home, largely untouched. Suddenly, he had what some are dubbing on social media as a "miracle house," often seen in the aftermath of fires in places like California.
She recalled when Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) speculated that the 2018 Camp fire, which killed 85 people when it destroyed the California town of Paradise, might have been started by a laser beam in space. In this case, a regular asphalt composition roof would likely have done just as good a job as metal, as most have a Class A fire resistance rating, she added. The company prides itself on using the smallest footprint solution for a particular problem, including adjusting irrigation in response to weather.
The homeowners purchased the house, which is believed to be nearly 100 years old, in 2021, and began a two-year renovation project in line with a historic preservation plan. The modular homes are each just under 600 square feet with two bedrooms. To apply, residents must be verified as impacted by the Maui wildfires. Monthly rent is set at $2,500 and will include water, sewer, and trash collection. Minimum occupancy per unit is two people, with maximum occupancy set at five people per unit. According to Popular Mechanics, the so-called "miracle house" was primarily protected by its three-foot-wide stretch of river rock that surrounds the building.
The devastating wildfires burned down over 2,200 buildings in the town of Lahaina, and questions have been raised over whether Hawaiian Electric - the island's main power supplier - was warned about the potential fires before they erupted. In places where wildfires are historically frequent, many trees have adapted to resist or even rely on wildfires. Regular large wildfires weren’t common in the Hawaiian islands until recently, and so in general the islands’ native plants aren’t equipped to deal with regular fires, the Hawaii Division of Forestry and Wildlife says.
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