At least 114 people have died in the Maui wildfires that started last Tuesday. 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. That’s followed by the “near home environment” — the area immediately surrounding the structure, she said. Experts suggest that homeowners clear flammable vegetation in a 5-foot radius and replace it with a hardscape feature such as paving stones or gravel — similar to what the Millikins did, she said. Pattie Tamura, whose family owns the house believes it survived due to its concrete walls.
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For hours until the morning, they alternated between fits of tears and restless sleep while parked on the roadside, stuck in traffic. Unable to get into Lahaina, Alicia Kalepa sent her 17-year-old twin daughters by boat to check on the family's property. It wasn’t until the girls returned by driving a winding and narrow road north of Lahaina that she got confirmation that the vast majority of Leiali’i was unscathed. Keola Beamer, a famous slack key guitarist who lives in Leiali’i, found significance in the neighborhood's name. “Lei” can mean garland in Hawaiian and “alii” refers to chiefs or royalty. Unable to get into Lahaina, Alicia Kalepa sent her 17-year-old twin daughters by boat to check on the family’s property.
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When a friend later showed the Millikins’ a photo of their house standing alone after the fire, surrounded by other not-so-lucky properties, their feelings were complicated. So when they finally got the chance to buy it, they did, and completely revamped the property. And doing that may have just been the thing that ensured its survival in the fire. That project included a new, commercial-grade steel roof that likely would’ve provided better protection from embers than shingles. Atwater Millikin and her husband plan to return to Maui soon and open their place to neighbors who were left homeless. While the house had sprinklers, so did most of the neighbors’ properties, and the system wasn’t working when needed because the power was out, Atwater Millikin said.
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His group connected garden hoses and he broke down a homesteader’s fence to keep the fire out of the community, he said. Hours of makeshift firefighting with garden hoses and buckets of water across Lahaina didn’t stop flames from consuming his house, his rental properties and thousands of other structures in his beloved hometown. Atwater Millikin also said she and her husband replaced the asphalt roof with a metal one. Trip Millikin and his wife, Dora Atwater Millikin, bought the Front Street house in 2021, according to the Civil Beat. The home, which once housed a local sugar plantation's management employees, is thought to have been moved from the plantation to its current location in 1925, the Civil Beat reported. They hadn't made any efforts to fireproof their home, they told local news outlets.
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Workers with the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands erected a temporary black screen to protect Kalepa's house from any potentially toxic dust that might blow over from a house that burned just outside the homestead’s boundary. People have been forced to take refuge in shelter homes and are being provided with necessary items like food and water. Workers with the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands erected a temporary black screen to protect Kalepa’s house from any potentially toxic dust that might blow over from a house that burned just outside the homestead’s boundary. But when he and his wife are able to go back, he’s hoping to set up his home as some sort of a community hub for people trying to rebuild theirs.
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Two years ago, the couple purchased the 100-year-old property that used to be a bookkeeper's house for employees of a sugar plantation. The 100-year-old wood house on Front Street is still standing as most of the town of Lahaina has been destroyed. The fires are considered the worst natural disaster in Hawaiian state history.
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After purchasing the property, the Millikin couple renovated the historic structure, which used to be a bookkeeper’s home for a nearby plantation. Alongside luck and potentially favorable winds, the renovations may be a key reason why the Front Street home is still standing, though none of the changes were made as a means of fire prevention. Without the proper precautions, houses can "start catching each other on fire," Wara told Civil Beat. "If enough of the homes have that kind of preparation then that chain reaction doesn't get started."
But more importantly, experts say the homeowners’ decision to replace the landscaping around the house with river stones may have also helped keep the flames at bay. She was told that during the fire, “there were pieces of wood — 6, 12 inches long — that were on fire and just almost floating through the air with the wind and everything,” she told the LA Times. The fires singed one part of the structure, but the only damage there was a warped PVC pipe on a wall. "Everybody's calling it 'the miracle house,'" Trip Millikin, who owns the home at 271 Front St., told NPR. But that label makes him uncomfortable, he added, citing the flood of emotions that came with learning that while his house was spared, his community was gutted.
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Water in the neighborhood, like much of Lahaina, remains unsafe to cook with or drink. Just two of the neighborhood’s 104 homes were lost to the fire, an immense relief amid a disaster that destroyed more than 2,000 buildings and killed at least 97 people. They switched out the home's asphalt roof for one with heavy-gauge metal, surrounded the house with river stones and removed foliage around it. HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) - Among the rows of charred buildings, ash and rubble along Front Street stands a home with a red roof, appearing virtually unscathed from a devastating wildfire that tore through the community. Photos of the wooden house, standing intact while its neighbors were reduced to ashes, quickly became an online fascination.
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. "The house was an absolute nightmare, but you could see the bones of it," he said, saying that the local historic building suffered from a rotting exterior.
The wildfires that struck Maui earlier this month devastated the historic town of Lahaina, reducing nearly every building to ashy rubble — but one wooden house in the center of it all survived unscathed. She said as the fires blazed, large pieces of wood would hit people's roofs. "If it was an asphalt roof, it would catch on fire. And otherwise, they would fall off the roof and then ignite the foliage around the house," she said.
Airborne embers are the most common source of wildfire spread, the Colorado agency's Daniel Beveridge told NPR. 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. "We love our neighborhood and love our friends, and just cannot believe that that world that we knew so well and loved — it's gone forever."
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