‘We sent the kids home. Then all our cellphones went out’

Ryan Kirkham had been the principal at Maui preparatory school for 13 years when the Maui wildfires ignited in 2023, killing 102 people in Lahaina and costing almost $3.3bn in insured damages. Climate change is increasing the severity of droughts in the Hawaiian Islands, which correlates with an increased likelihood of wildfires.

The power went out at about 5.30 that morning. It was knocked out all day; there were power lines and trees down across the roads. The first day of school was scheduled to be the very next day. I was at work. Teachers were getting their classrooms ready to welcome kids.

This was August, the middle of hurricane season. There was a big hurricane passing a couple hundred miles south of Hawaii. There were hurricane-force winds down in town. We had volleyball practice; we had enough daylight to practise in the gym. During practice, at about 3.30pm, I received a call from a parent at the school. She said: “Ryan, there’s a fire in town. We’ve lost our house. We barely got out alive.” Theirs was one of the first houses to go.

Then I received another call from another family. “Ryan, our whole neighbourhood just went up in flames.” Lahaina is small, but those houses are in different parts of Lahaina. In between those homes were several hundred other homes. I just went: “What is going on down in town?”

We sent the kids home. Just after, around 5pm, all our cellphones went out. There’s still no power, no communication, no information. I came home, slightly aware of what was starting. Before the phones went out, a few families had called and asked if they could come to our house. As we went to bed, they showed up. They were like: “We got evacuated. It was just precautionary. We think we’ll be able to go back in the morning, and everything will be there.” So they didn’t have much stuff packed.

We were setting up mattresses, and people were getting ready to sleep on couches. We had candles going everywhere. There was chatter about what was happening in town. We had five different sets of families in our house that night.

I was in bed, and at about 10.30pm, one of our kids came in and said: “Hey, Dad, there’s a police officer at the door and he wants to talk to you.” I went to the door. He said: “Hey, are you Ryan, the principal of Maui prep?” I said yes. He goes: “We got to open your school right now. We have to set it up as an evacuation centre because there’s buses on their way up to the school. You need to open everything up.”

I hopped in the car and drove up to the school, roughly 1km away, out of the fire zone. The police officer had his lights going and I was following. Everything was just black. There’s still no power. But, at one point, you could see this big, orange, arching glow over the whole town. The stark contrast: this bright orange glow with pitch black sky. Feeling the weight of knowing something tragic was going on but not having any idea of the scale of the devastation.

There were several cars and a bus waiting. The police officer and I opened up the gates and as many classrooms as we could. All these city buses started arriving full of people covered in smoke and ash and soot. They were just black head to toe. People were injured. Some were in their clothes. Some were in their pyjamas. Some were soaking wet.

The fire started up in the mountains and was getting to the highway. People were abandoning their cars and the only place they could keep going was the ocean. I remember carrying a little 80-year-old Japanese lady off the bus and she was drenched because she had spent a few hours out there. People were trying to find her some dry clothes or a towel and trying to get her out of the wind.

The buses just kept coming. An influx of people and buses. Maui prep families started showing up to the school to help. Our school is only 300 kids. That night, we had 800 people on our campus.

Everything just felt muted. People were so in shock, just laying on the floors of our classrooms, sleeping on our gym floor.Families huddled up together having quiet conversations. Our only sources of light that night were emergency gas-powered floodlights on our outdoor basketball court.

The only time anything was loud was if someone was injured. We had a little triage centre set up in one of our classrooms. I don’t recall any major injuries but people had bumps and scrapes, some of them were burns, sprained ankles. People were crying or expressing a great deal of pain. In the night, someone would be moaning.

I remember the sun coming up the next morning. A mother drove up to the school, saw me standing out in the driveway and said: “Ryan, have you seen my girls? We don’t know if they got out of the fires or not.” I coached her girls in club volleyball. I said: “Sorry, I haven’t seen them. They aren’t up here.” I think she was hoping they had somehow made their way up to the school in the night.

I remember we couldn’t cook anything. There’s no power. We had a little concession area. We started handing out all of our bags of Cheetos or ice-cream. We had some bottled water. Tourists, visitors and residents started dropping off food, water and clothes. These weren’t county officials. These weren’t government officials. These were families from other parts of Maui that had gone to Walmart or Target in central Maui, bought as much stuff as they could with their own money, drove it out to us and unloaded truckloads of supplies at the school.

We gave as many as we could to the evacuees and we still had all these supplies. We said: “We’ll serve as a food, water, clothing distribution site.” We let four cars in at a time. A volunteer would come and say: “Hey, what are your needs?” “Oh, man, it would be great if we could just get some water.” Here’s a whole crate of water. Next car comes in. A line of several hundred cars parked down the hill, out to the highway.

I remember this one gentleman who had everything he had in his car. I asked him how he was doing and what he needed. He just said: “I lost everything. I lost my son in the fire. Do you have any water for me?” He was in a state of shock, non-emotive, factual. His son was one of the only kids who died in the fire. I remember my heart breaking for him and feeling helpless. There’s nothing you can do.

It was in the lineup where I saw that mother and her two girls. They drove up to the school and the two of them piled out of the back of their minivan. Their mom was beaming ear to ear. That was such a massive sense of relief and joy. We gave each other big hugs. I knew those girls were OK.

Because the power was out, we had restaurants bringing up food. One family took it upon themselves to feed all 200 of the volunteers. They brought propane grills, cooking breakfast burritos or sausages and bacon and eggs. They cooked up some expensive steaks. I remember those smells and going: “Boy, this is the best-tasting and smelling piece of bacon I’ve had in my life.”

Four or five days after the fire, power miraculously came back on. We thought it was going to be out for a month. There are five other schools on West Maui: two burned down, three were shut down. Five of the schools on West Maui had burned down or shut down so we were like: “Let’s figure out a way to start school.” We met as an administrative team and said: “How can we serve these kids? How can we get as many kids in as possible?” Our teachers said: “Ryan, we don’t care how many kids. You fit as many kids to our school as you can.” We had over 1,000 applications in four days. We brought in 150 students in that admission period. Unfortunately, we couldn’t bring all those kids just because we didn’t have enough space.

We had first day of school on 21 August. Normally, it’s a fun, celebratory time, our mascots out there waving signs and taking pictures with kids. But it wasn’t like that. It wasn’t sad. It wasn’t celebratory. It was trying to create a warm, welcoming environment for kids.

I remember telling teachers: “If you’re assigning chapter 1, page 13, questions 10 through 30 in the math textbook on day one, you’ve missed the mark.” We’re not here to add to their stress. We are here to give them some anchor in the storm. We’re here to support them emotionally. Some of these kids were living in hotel rooms. Some were living with three other families at a friend’s house. I remember “normalcy” being used quite a bit then, and I remember feeling sick of using this word.

Six months after the fire, we were sitting in school and the power goes out. Immediately, the question was: “Are we going to be safe? Is there going to be another fire?” It was so fresh among a lot of our younger students. That trauma is still present for a lot of people. A year and a half out, homes are now being built in Lahaina. The fire continues to be the foundation on which our daily lives are built.

There is a general sense of frustration that the federal government only provided $700 for people who lost their homes. It would’ve been great for there to be a higher level of support. Having more, better evacuation routes is part of the conversations Lahaina residents are having as they rebuild.

What we learned afteris that initial wave of responseis not some relief organization or government. It’s people helping.This seems to be typical of disasters. The devastation to the community is well documented. On one side of the coin, we saw devastation. On the flip of it, we saw the positive nature of humanity shining through in how people supported other people.

It’s a little bit funny, but for the next six months or so, we’d be walking around town and we’d see a little elderly lady walking around in a Maui prep uniform. We knew that there was a good chance she was up at the school that night and that was someone who we were able to help and support.

We got to bear witness to this side of humanity that was so giving and so supportive. Seeing the generosity of others willing to support our community in such a time of drastic need. Seeing the resilience of everyone who lived through that experience, however big or small. I think that instills a lot of hope for me and our community.

Cover photo:  Akasha Rabut/The Guardian