Witnesses describe horrifying scenes from deadly and destructive Hawaiian wildfires
Several people describe what they saw in Hawaii from the devastating wildfires that tore through the island of Maui and blazed through the historic town of Lahaina. Dozens of people have died and hundreds of building structures have been burned to the ground in one of the worst U.S. wildfires in recent years.
Video Transcript
- Oh my gosh.
- It's pretty unreal.
RICHIE OLSTEN: We expected to see some structures burned and so forth and some damage. But we were not prepared for what we saw. What we saw looked like an area that had been bombed and burned in a war zone. It was unbelievable.
- Oh my gosh, look at the harbor.
RICHIE OLSTEN: Right in the Lahaina Harbor, the courthouse in there, mission home, all the church, all the places that are tourist areas that are Hawaiian history are gone. And that can't be replaced. I've never seen anything 1/100 as the devastation there.
DUSTIN JOHNSON: If anybody's still out here, the fire is on Front Street and it is time to go.
I was the last one off the dock when the firestorm came through the banyan tree and took everything with it. And I just ran out to the beach and I ran south. And I just helped everybody I could along the way. You got to know when you can.
It's my last video on this pier today. Bye, Scotch Mist. Hope you're still there. Stay, boat.
JAMIE BROWN: I got home about 4:00 yesterday from work, smoke in town. My son and his girlfriend and two kids were at the house. And we evacuated immediately, no cell phone coverage, no internet, no way to contact the outside world, woke up this morning, and got on our phones two pictures of our house just down to the slab, nothing but smoke, cinders. We came with the clothes we got on and a dog and two kids.
MASON JARVI: We just had the worst disaster I've ever seen. All Lahaina is burnt to a crisp. And it's like an apocalypse.
