How one man fought the Maui wildfires: A garden hose and a promise

(Mengshin Lin for The Washington Post)

LAHAINA, Hawaii — For long stretches of that long night, Shaun “Buge” Saribay thought his story would end in tragedy.

He was trapped in the middle of his historic hometown, surrounded by fire, with nothing but a few friends and whatever they could scavenge to fend off Hawaii’s deadliest blaze ever.

But again and again, when the flames closed in, when the garden hoses and water bottles seemed a feeble defense against the sweltering heat and swirling embers, the promise he made to his two daughters rang in his head: Don’t worry. Dad’s going to come home.

Saribay, 42, along with his three tenants and a few others, found themselves on Front Street, a couple blocks down from the tattoo shop he ran. This was the heart of Lahaina, an area that holds immense cultural significance for Native Hawaiians like him.

The road would soon become an international symbol of catastrophe.

As fire bore down, the group looked for open space. They chose the yard and parking lot of Lahaina United Methodist Church, about a mile away from their homes. Saribay had recently worked on the building’s renovation, and he remembered where the water spigots were.

He glanced around at the neighboring houses, and he spotted a lifeline: hoses.

The crew huddled, and Saribay played quarterback. Chain-smoking USA Menthol Lights, he barked directions. They decided to grab as many hoses as they could and soak the ground.

Isaiah Hufalar, one of the tenants, was shirtless when the group was forced from their block, and his skin stung from the heat. But like Saribay, Hufalar wanted to make it back to his family. He picked up a hose.

“We were stuck in that parking lot,” Hufalar said. “Fighting for our lives.”

The fast-moving fire was chewing through the neighborhood, tightening its grip on their crew, and they were standing in kindling.

They sprayed the dry, dead grass beneath their feet and the wood-frame homes around them. Maybe, if they flooded their patch, it wouldn’t catch.

Flames were only part of the problem. Wind whipped through at 80 miles per hour, blowing kickball-sized embers into their area.

The group rushed to put them out before they spread. The hoses didn’t always reach. So they filled buckets and dashed across the smoking, debris-strewn yard.

At some point, an ember crashed into the church roof, and it caught fire. Driven away from what he hoped was a haven, Saribay crouched near a house, a hose in one hand, a phone in the other. He wanted a record of the evening, just in case he didn’t make it out. His resolve began to crack.

The sun had set, but the fire lit the sky. He repeated his mantra, sounding a little less sure: “I’m coming home,” he said, “wherever that is now.”

When the fire died down again, Saribay had a chance to pause. And listen.

His synthetic shirt had melted in the heat, so he rummaged around until he found another. Then he heard anguished cries from a nearby parking structure. It sounded like a crowd of people and a baby. So he hopped on an abandoned bike and went searching.

He found them, alive. And then he saw his town. He was one of the first to witness its apocalyptic transformation.

As the sun rose, Saribay ventured further into Lahaina. His nearby truck still worked, and what supplies he had left inside he gave out to anyone he saw.

He was still in survival mode when it hit him: He was alive.

Some areas weren’t accessible by car, so he rode in on his scavenged bike. It was a ghost town. He didn’t know if his children and their mother, who had fled the day before to a relative’s house, ever made it out.

Through the smoke, he saw a fireman he knew and called to him, desperate for news.

He kept exploring the ruined, unrecognizable town. Eventually, he arrived at the plot where his house used to sit, the building he fled the night before.

It was all rubble and ash.

In the end, his children didn’t need to find out what happened to their father on that terrifying night from the video diaries on his iPhone. He could tell them in person.

Because he made it.

With a lot of grit and likely more than a bit of luck, he and those around him had kept the fire at bay long enough to survive.

He steered toward his family, riding over burned branches and dead power lines.

He had a promise to keep.

Additional reporting by Mengshin Lin.

Editing by Julie Vitkovskaya, Whitney Shefte, Cathleen Decker and Ann Gerhart. Graphics by Laris Karklis. Design and development by Aadit Tambe. Design editing by Matthew Callahan and Virginia Singarayar. Copy editing by Dorine Bethea.