Peninsula residents reach out to help in Maui wildfire disaster

A Peninsula family has returned home — exhausted but grateful to be safe — from a harrowing trip in fire-ravaged Maui.

Meanwhile, various local relief efforts are reaching out to those who have lost a loved one, home or business in what has become the nation’s deadliest wildfire disaster in more than a century.

“I’m heartbroken,” said Sean Pasin of Mountain View, who was vacationing in Maui with his wife, their three children and her parents when the fires erupted on Aug. 8 and ripped through the island.

“I just can’t express the level of sadness I have for the locals there we saw. It makes me reflect and wonder if they’re still there.”

If not for a different turn on the road, people might be wondering the same thing about Pasin and his family.

He, his wife, their teen daughter and the girl’s grandmother took off in a rented minivan and were out looking for food and groceries when fires first broke out in and around the historic town of Lahaina.

Pasin’s two young sons and their grandfather remained at a hotel.

‘I felt a sense of urgency and told my wife we needed to know what roads to take to get out.’

Sean Pasin, who was vacationing in Maui with his family when the wildfires ripped through Lahaina

“The smoke was getting thicker, becoming grayer and grayer,” Pasin said. “I felt a sense of urgency and told my wife we needed to know what roads to take to get out and get back to the hotel.”

At one point, Pasin steered left instead of right onto the popular tourist drag of Front Street. Later, he saw images of “all those cars stuck in traffic and burned” along that stretch, Pasin said. “That’s where we could’ve been.”

For almost three days, the family members were separated and unable to communicate with each other.

“We couldn’t let them know we were OK,” Pasin said, “and we didn’t know if they were OK.”

Eventually, Pasin’s wife and her mother boarded an evacuation bus back to the hotel and got the two boys and her father. The Pasin family reunited at the airport.

“I ran to my kids,” Pasin said. “My youngest one didn’t want to let me go.”

As of Monday, the death toll from the conflagration on Maui reached nearly 100 lives with more fatalities expected to be counted. Flames leveled Lahaina and damaged or destroyed at least 2,200 buildings in West Maui — most of them residential. Across the island, the destruction has been estimated to cost $6 billion.

The wildfires swept through tinder-dry conditions, fanned by heavy winds from passing Hurricane Dora. The exact causes of the fires remain under investigation.

Palo Alto-born and -raised Jason Raffin, a chef in Lahaina, escaped the burning island literally with just the clothes on his back.

He made his way back to the Bay Area, where he has raised about $15,000 for a program to provide freshly cooked, healthy meals to wildfire survivors in Lahaina.

Raffin and his girlfriend evacuated their Lahaina condominium as building roofs blew off and flames closed in, he said. Many of his friends lost everything and have gone south on the island to find somewhere to stay.

“I’m so past lost, and it’s just rebuilding now — to cook and to organize,” said Raffin, who planned to return soon to Maui.

“I feel like I’m built for this kind of role — the sole purpose of helping people.”

Ralph Vitales of Redwood City has collected nearly $50,000 in a GoFundMe fundraiser for his friends Kimo and Steffani Kirkman, who lost their house, two dogs and cat to the fires in Maui.

The Kirkmans have been planning to relocate to the Bay Area with Kimo working in Palo Alto.

“My wife and I got married in Maui in 2009 and plan to retire there,” Vitales added. “It’s always been a special place. That’s why it’s so traumatic to see Front Street completely gone.”

Dana McCue of Palo Alto and her daughter, Tess van Hulsen, are also making sure they do their part to help in the Maui catastrophe.

“We’ve been going as a family there for 15 years,” McCue said. “We know a lot of people and locals there, and their businesses and homes are all gone.”

McCue and her daughter have been gathering medical and other supplies for a collection by the International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 10 in San Francisco to be shipped to Maui.

“Tess’ happy place is Lahaina, and she was desperate to give back when she heard about the list of items needed by the shelters there,” McCue said.

Elsewhere, the American Red Cross has deployed 21 volunteers from across Northern California, including those from Los Gatos and Morgan Hill, to help on the ground in Maui.

“Our work in Hawaii is just beginning as recovering from a wildfire of this magnitude will take time and the full community coming together to support one another,” said Pooja Klebig, spokesperson for the local chapter of the Red Cross.

Another way people can help those affected in the Hawaii wildfire crisis is by donating online at redcross.org, calling 1-800-RED-CROSS or texting the word HAWAII to 90999 to make a $10 donation.

Lahaina restaurant group Hana Hou Hospitality, which lost two of its five establishments in the wildfires, has launched a GoFundMe.com webpage to help its employees recover from the disaster. (Search for “Hana Hou Hospitality.”) The restaurants that still stand are helping the community by giving away free food.