Lahaina wildfire survivor describes explosion, flames in Kihei brush fire

HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) - The Maui Fire Department is investigating a brush fire in Kīhei over the weekend that may have been intentionally set and where neighbors heard what sounded like an explosion.

One witness is a Lahaina wildfire survivor who had just moved back to Maui the night before the incident.

On Saturday night , firefighters responded to a brush fire in a vacant lot in Kīhei between Liloa Hema Drive and condos along South Kīhei Road.

Lahaina wildfire survivor Sanford Hill, 75, said he heard an explosion and then saw huge flames. He shot video from his apartment, got out of his building and then talked to firefighters.

“I heard a loud explosion. I looked down and it looked like someone had thrown a gasoline bomb. Right into the thing. The fire came like big within seconds,” Hill said in the video.

A firefighter asked whether it sounded like a firework.

“No, it sounded like a real explosion like boom!” Hill replied.

A frightening reminder

“I literally turned around and saw the fire through the window and it was big already. Already at the top of the trees and maybe a hundred feet in diameter so something blew up and scattered flames,” Hill told Hawaii News Now.

Hill suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) after his elderly housing complex burned down in the Lahaina fire and he lost several friends in 2023.

He said the flames in the Kīhei fire left him in shock.

“It took me almost two minutes to just comprehend that there was a fire there and it was big and it was moving. I almost went into a panic attack,” he said.

Hill had been living on Kauaʻi since the Lahaina wildfire and moved back to Maui the night before the Kīhei fire.

“Honestly. It’s a little scary,” he said.

It took firefighters about an hour to get the flames under control. Two acres burned, with no damage or injuries reported. The Maui Fire Department said the cause of the fire is undetermined, but preliminary indications show it may have been intentionally set.

Hill said he turned over his video to police.