LAHAINA FIRE Recovery Update - December 2023 DRONE Video of Entire BURN-ZONE

[Music] Aloha everyone so it's been about four months since the devastating wildfires in Lina and we've had some rain we had some nice days of Sun so we're starting to see things start to green up uh I figured today would be a good day to get the Drone up in the air and see what kind of progress has been made in lat Town let's go take a look so I was able to capture just about the entire burn zone for today's video it actually takes three separate drone flights stitched together and in this video we're going to start at the southernmost tip of lahina as you can see we're flying over puamana right now the area that uh escaped most of the damage from the fire and we're going to be heading north all the way up into the wuli neighborhood by the way I'm going to include time stamps in the description down below uh for each neighborhood that we fly through so if you have a particular neighborhood that you're interested in seeing updated Drone footage for and you want to skip right to that neighborhood go ahead and check out the time stamps uh but the whole video is worth watching because I'll share some nuggets all the way through okay so now we're coming up on the area still in puamana that did receive a lot of damage from the fire now we're coming up on Front Street this is the southernmost tip of Front Street that curves up to the highway so I'm sure there'll be a lot of people that watch this video and think that there really has not been a lot of progress as far as the cleanup uh but do keep in mind that the epa's focus was on removing hazardous materials first as a phase one of this project uh which has just been completed and now we're moving into phase 2 which is actually the debris removal you'll also notice a lot of work trucks lined all the way up and down Front Street uh I don't know for certain but it looks like they are doing some work on the power lines now we're coming up on the condominium complex lahina Shores that's the high-rise building to the left of the screen lahina Shores appears to be mostly undamaged uh but just beyond it is 505 Front Street which was a small little shopping center with restaurants and that sort of thing uh completely destroyed by the fire by the way on the return flight later in the video I will be farther Inland so if you're not seeing your neighborhood in this particular pass you might catch it later in the video okay so now we're coming up on lahina Warf uh to the left you can see the lahina harbor uh and more in the center of the screen is the Banyon tree the good news is the Banyon tree does show signs of life so that is a really important Landmark that I know a lot of people are really happy to see uh is likely to survive the fire okay so starting a new flight as you can see we're over the lahina harbor right now and again flying towards the Banyon tree this time as we fly over the banon tree see if you can notice the green leaves okay now we're coming up on Front Street once again just about to fly directly over the top of Front Street of course still heading north uh through the center of lahina town right now this is the historic district that was so greatly loved the uh cross street we're about to fly over right now is lahana Luna road which is another prominent Landmark here in l H Town the building that's still standing with the Blue Roof is the building that used to hold uh Foodland grocery store the uh next cross street here is papala Street uh just on the other side of papala street is the beginning of the Outlets of Maui the next cross street we're coming up on is Baker Street this is where the channel house uh apartment condos were also about to fly right over the Seaman's Hospital Museum and the corner of Front Street and canoy Street to the left you can see baby Beach off in the corner the top of the screen uh way off in the distance you can see kopali so the kopali hotels and condos the high-rises there Mala Warf to the left coming up on the kaha stream and just on the other side of the K stream is the canary mall so the Lina Canary Mall which is where we have Safeway and Longs both of which are now operational to the left you can see the old Lina luau again this this is an area right in the center of town that uh escaped a lot of damage from the fire uh as we continue on past the L caner Mall this is where the uh the fire damage continues so again is a lot of older buildings uh that were the most impacted by this fire still flying right over a Front Street right now you can see where the highway is going to intersect with Front Street here coming up pretty quick and the large building to the left of the screen is lahina roads picking up a new flight again starting at lahina roads and flying North as we come up on the intersection of Front Street and the hono Pani Highway again you still see a lot of these work trucks uh with cranes up in the air uh looks like they are working on the power lines now we're coming up on the wuli neighborhood uh this is the neighborhood that is the farthest north that was most impacted by the fire in a second here we're going to jump across the highway start a new flight and continue flying North uh over the top of wuli uh just to give you perspective we started looking South uh towards the direction we just came from uh and as I spin around here we're going to continue heading in the same direction that we were before uh heading north uh just over the wakoli neighborhood now moving forward my intention is to do monthly or bonly drone flights just like this over lahina trying to capture just about the entire burn Zone uh in an effort to keep everybody updated on the progress and as I had mentioned previously it might look like there has not been a whole lot of progress in the first four months but do keep in mind that the EPA was focused on just removing the hazardous materials that phase of removal has been completed has just been completed and we're now moving into phase two which is the debris removal authorities estimate that there's some 400,000 tons of debris that needs to be removed and relocated safely so it is going to be quite the project moving forward my hope is the next time I do a flight just like this we're going to start to see more progress more noticeable progress uh with the removal of debris and of course that debris removal is the next step before we can start to rebuild which is going to be the exciting part so if you're not already subscribed to my channel and you're curious to follow along as we go through the recovery process here in lah feel free to subscribe I intend to keep everybody updated in the most balanced and unbiased way possible with a focus on what we're going to do moving forward rather than what happened in the past okay so that's pretty much as far north as the fire traveled so there's not a whole lot of fire damage moving North from here so we're going to turn around head south we're going to do a full pass of the entire burn Zone heading south and we're going to take a little bit of a different path this time to try to capture more area so we're going to focus a little bit more Inland in some areas we'll also capture some of the baby Beach when we get to that area and also head up into uh the line Lina Luna neighborhood and shark pit as well now that being said if there's any particular area that you would like me to focus on on future drone videos feel free to leave your thoughts in the comment section below I'm happy to try to capture uh particular areas for people if anything is missed I I try to do these videos in the most systematic way possible to capture as much of the burn Zone as possible but that's uh that's not always easy to do because there is a lot to see okay so that's pretty much the end of the wuli residential neighborhood you can see a yellow building kind of Center top of the screen that is the Gateway Center where we have Ace Hardware uh Ross and food land farms which of course those are all still operational uh fully opened right in the center of lahina town okay so starting a new flight this time we hopped across the hono a elani highway again we're still heading south and about to fly over the Safeway building honu and Malo restaurants are at the bottom of the screen right now uh again we're going to fly right over the old Lina luau and we're heading towards baby Beach now we're about to fly over the Mala boat ramp and we're coming up on the cemetery that is right on baby Beach on the left hand side of the screen you'll see the jodo Mission which was the old Buddhist temple another prominent Historic Landmark in Lina that unfortunately we lost and now we're flying right over the top of baby Beach if you've watched any of my past videos uh of lah you'll know that baby Beach was one of my favorite beaches to visit in all of Maui of course I'm a little bit biased because it was a just a 4minute walk from my house so I spent a lot of time in that sand okay as we pan up you're going to see the Pioneer Mill Smoke Stack off in the distance another prominent Landmark here in Lina and as we come to the end of the beach we're going to start to Veer more Inland on the left hand side of the screen you'll see a row of houses that look pretty much undamaged from the fire that is K Village that's uh my neighborhood uh and also where my houses I didn't capture a whole lot of Kom Village in this video but if you want to look at some of my past videos I do a pretty thorough tour of the neighborhood from the ground at the top left of the screen is the opaa condominium complex about half the buildings in opaa did burn down the other half are still standing okay Crossing the highway now and off in the distance you can see the lahina Luna neighborhood fire damage continues all the way up to the bypass Highway and that's pretty much the cut off where the fire stopped in that direction another work truck rolling around you can see the boom lift on the back uh if anybody knows exactly what type of projects these trucks are doing all these trucks with the boom lifts uh feel free to write it in the comments I would be really curious to know exactly what they're working on okay so starting a new flight heading south this time starting from K Village and heading towards Front Street again so in this clip we're going to take pretty much the same path uh that we took heading north uh but you will get a little bit of a different perspective from this angle couple more minutes into the video we're going to turn Inland and we're going to go over the shark putut neighborhood as we head towards puamana to finish off the uh the aerial tour to the right and directly ocean front is where cheeseburger and Paradise was okay so starting uh the last flight here as we head in the southern Direction This Time more Inland taking a little bit of a different path than we did on the way North pretty soon here we're going to be coming up on the shark pit neighborhood that is that is an area that I've had uh a number number of people reach out to me and ask if uh I can get some aerial shots of that particular neighborhood right now we're coming up on Shaw Street and off in the distance on the left side of the screen you can see the hono a elani highway so it's going to be really interesting to see how long it takes the Army Corps of Engineers to remove all the debris from the fire the estimated timeline that I have seen for Phase 2 two of the debris removal is that it'll take the better part of 2024 so essentially it's going to be a one-year project is what they're anticipating at this point a big part of phase 2 is building a containment area to safely dispose of the Ash and debris as of right now the proposed site for the containment field is in Olu wallu so it's just a few miles to the South and still on Maui's West Side okay so we're coming up on the end of of the shark pit neighborhood and starting to enter into the puamana area so you might want to share this video with anybody you know that has ties to Lina town I know it can be difficult to find up-to-date information on exactly what is happening now in Lina and what is going to happen moving forward it seems like a lot of the content out there is focused on what happened in the past how the fire started and who's to blame where my objective is to focus on what the solutions are and how we're going to move forward into the recovery and if you appreciate the time and energy it takes me to put these aerial tours together uh smash that like button it helps the YouTube algorithm and I hope to see you guys on the next video aloha

Channel: Jesse G. Wald

Views: 596,277

Keywords: Lahaina, Lahaina FIre, maui, maui fire, lahaina real estate, lahaina drone, lahaina aerial video, lahaina recovery update, lahaina strong, maui drone video, maui real estate, maui strong, Puamana, Shark Pit, Front Street Lahaina, Front Street, Lahaina Harbor, Kahoma Village, Wahikuli, Lahaina Shores, Lahaina Roads, lahaina rebuilds, lahaina update, Eric west, Jesse g wald, baby beach

Id: y8_KMwXwewU

Length: 21min 0sec (1260 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 06 2023