SMOKE

Cane fire viewed from my lanai in Paia

Although I was never a smoker, (not cigarettes anyway) I’ve had an intimate relationship with smoke and fire for so many years. When the sugar cane industry was thriving on Maui, the method of harvesting was to first burn the field, to clear away the leaves and the tops, allowing just the valuable cane stalk to be cut and gathered. The resulting smoke plumes from these fires went so high that they created weather. We called the resulting ash fallout Maui snow. When I worked on boats there, we would sometimes have to hose off the boat 2 or 3 times in the early morning before our passengers showed up for their snorkel trip, so they weren’t sitting in ash. 

For 10 of the 30 years I lived on Maui, I lived right on a cane field, so not only did the smoke affect me but also, the wind-blown dirt from the empty fields after the harvest, added a daily layer of red dirt to everything in my house. Not to mention, the displaced scorpions, centipedes and cane spiders taking up residence with me once their homes had been burned.

Once the cane industry shut down in 2016, the fields were left fallow, not cleared, not watered, just a dry tinderbox of leaves, getting scorched in the drought, so wildfire became a thing on the island. 

When I moved to Washington 3 years ago, the first summer was a brutal fire season, with the AQI sometimes hitting over 500. A good deal of time was spent indoors with AC and air filters on. I have friends who lost their homes in the Camp Fire in Paradise, CA. and in the Almeda Fire in Phoenix, OR. 

But the Lahaina fire on August 8, 2023 hit hardest. I’ve finally stopped crying every time I look at the photos. I have many friends who lost their homes but luckily all my family and friends there are alive, though traumatized. 

So how to bring this story to an upbeat end? It’s difficult. But when I see the huge outpouring of love and support from the entire Hawaiian community, I am lifted. Everyone is giving all of themselves, all that they have, to those who lost everything. Everyone I know has opened their homes and have people sleeping on floors and couches. Everyone I know is donating so much of their own household goods, clothing, food. The aloha spirit is strong. And others around the world are helping as well. So, there is hope, and that warms my heart. 

And smoke makes for some stunning sun rises.

Sunrise with wildfire smoke. Yakima, WA