Owner of Maui's unscathed red house explains why it survived

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They lined the ground with stones up to the drip line of the roof, which overhangs by 36 to 40 inches. Images of the red roofed house have gone viral on social media and survivors of the tragedy are marvelling at the miraculous occurrence. Some social media users have nicknamed the structure as ‘The Red House That Survived Hawaii Wild Fires’.

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It appears that combustibles were largely removed from the under-deck area, and the ember exposure of the deck was lessened because it faces the ocean, he said. The situation is all too real, said Dora Atwater Millikin, who owns the house with her husband. It's not clear how much the efforts of Saribay and others contributed to the neighborhood's survival. Archie Kalepa sees the survival of Leiali’i as a testament to the resilience of the Hawaiian people — “the root and soul of this place” — and the need to find ways for Hawaiians to prosper despite Hawaii’s crushingly high cost of living. It’s not clear how much the efforts of Saribay and others contributed to the neighborhood’s survival. Those with at least 50% Hawaiian blood can apply for a 99-year lease for $1 a year.

Red roofed house in Maui miraculously remains unscathed after Hawaii wildfires

Aerial footage of Lahaina recorded by KITV, showed the house which got spared in the wildfires. In the immediate home ignition zone – the area up to 5 feet around your home – using crushed stone or gravel is a vital part of reducing the risk of the structure being set ablaze. According to the National Fire Protection Association, reducing flammable vegetation in this area is crucial. The group also says metal roofing, removing dead debris or flammable materials from porch areas and using fire-resistant house siding can help homes withstand fires.

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They first heard about the fire from a man who lives in Lahainaluna, a neighborhood about three and a half miles away, and uses two rooms beneath the house as a workshop. “A ‘noncombustible zone’ near the home and under the deck is an excellent strategy to reduce the vulnerability of the home to a wind-blown ember exposure,” Quarles wrote in an email. “We lost neighbors in this, and neighbors lost everything,” Atwater Millikin told The Times.

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But there, in the midst of the destruction, was the seemingly untouched red roof of Millikin’s home. This home, overseen by a Native Hawaiian carpenter who headed most construction projects for the Pioneer Mill Co., was built from California redwood, Millikin said, which has some natural fire-resistant properties. But so was the historic house next door, which burned completely in the Aug. 8 fire. Mr Millikin and his wife said they are unsure exactly what saved their home.

"I think it's a combination of a commercial-grade corrugated metal roof, the stone [area] around the house, the palms around the house that absorb the heat — and a lot of divine intervention," he said. And they removed foliage that was up against the house — not because they were trying to reduce the risk of ignition, but because they were concerned about termites spreading to the wooden frame, she said. Their only nod toward disaster preparedness was to install hurricane ties, she added. The historic Front Street home was not the only property to survive the fire. But the indelible image of the improbably unscathed house amid a backdrop of devastation is so extreme that some have questioned whether the image was digitally altered. Saribay, who livestreamed his actions for hours on Instagram, focused on flames taking down a house just outside Leiali’i.

There are about 29,000 people on a waitlist for 99-year residential or agricultural land leases. The house was pretty rundown when the Millikins bought it, so they decided to renovate it and preserve a piece of Lahaina history, the Civil Beat reported. The truth is that less than 1% of our monthly readers are financial supporters. To remain a viable business model for local news, we need a higher percentage of readers-turned-donors.

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“If shrubs and bushes, especially flammable ones, are right up next to the house and embers catch them on fire, the heat can burst the window and it goes right into the home from there,” she said. On a section of Front Street in the town of Lahaina, every structure has been charred and replaced with squares of ash – except one. Right along the sea wall lies a single house with a red roof, green porch and a seemingly unharmed vehicle in a largely unscathed driveway.

Regulations in California have typically focused on a 30-foot perimeter around homes known as “Zone A” in firefighting. But Wara said that research on the thousands of homes that have burned in California in recent years has shown that it’s really what’s installed in the immediate few feet of a home that makes the biggest difference. The house is what’s known as a craftsman-inspired “plantation vernacular” dwelling, a style of homes constructed mostly by sugar and pineapple plantation companies in the early 20th century. The Millikins, who started living in Lahaina more than a decade ago, used to bicycle by the house and talk about what it would take to fix the sagging roof, the rotting lanai, the peeling paint.

The tragedy would have been compounded if the homestead burned, too, Kalepa said. Keola Beamer, a famous slack key guitarist who lives in Leiali’i, found significance in the neighborhood’s name. Most residents had evacuated as wind-whipped fire spread from the hillsides and surrounded the neighborhood, which is one of the newer subdivisions developed by the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands. Atwater Millikin told The Los Angeles Times that she doesn't quite understand why the home was spared, but she thinks it might have something to do with how they renovated it. That all helps ensure there's no fuel for any embers to ignite if they drift to your house. Experts say this red-roofed home offers a crucial lesson in wildfire safety.

In fires like the one in Lahaina, there are enormous amounts of flaming embers that are flying through the air. And if there’s something next to the house that is combustible — a wood fence, a bush, dry grass — that’s often what will ignite the structure, Wara said. "So many people have lost everything, and we need to look out for each other and rebuild. Everybody needs to help rebuild." The blazes destroyed most of the historic Maui town of Lahaina and the fires are now considered the worst natural disaster in Hawaii state history.

Remarkable survival: 100-year-old red house defies Maui fires in Hawaii - The Economic Times

Remarkable survival: 100-year-old red house defies Maui fires in Hawaii.

Posted: Wed, 23 Aug 2023 07:00:00 GMT [source]

“People generally think that it’s a big wall of flames that is catching houses on fire, but often the mechanism is embers,” she said. The owner of a red-roofed house in Maui that went viral for remaining untouched by the historic wildfires has explained the small, unexpected details that she thinks helped it survive in a neighborhood otherwise reduced to ash. The couple, who was visiting family in Massachusetts when the fire started, had recently renovated the home, but not with the express goal of hardening it against flames. Before fires ripped through Lahaina, the craftsman-inspired home at 271 Front St. didn’t stand out much in the neighborhood. The nearly 100-year-old structure had been lovingly restored in recent years, but it was one of many charming homes lining the waterfront of one of Hawaii’s most historically important towns.

Homeowners Trip Millikin and Dora Atwater Millikin told the local outlet Honolulu Civil Beat they purchased the property in 2021. As the Maui wildfires blazed through the town of Lahaina, Hawaii this month, the inferno created a trail of destruction and devastation, but it stopped short of one single home. Even the most well-prepared homes can still catch fire from neighboring structures, experts say.

His group connected garden hoses and he broke down a homesteader's fence to keep the fire out of the community, he said. Although Native Hawaiians including Saribay live throughout Lahaina, the Villages of Leiali’i is the only community in West Maui exclusively for Hawaiians. 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. Notably, the wildfires in Lahaina were aggravated by strong winds caused by Hurricane Dora. The tragedy is reportedly the worst wildfire disaster in the United States in more than a century. US President Joe Biden had declared the wildfires in Hawaii as a "major disaster".