LAHAINA, Hawaii — Lahaina resident Erwin Miyamoto squinted as he pointed to a clay-colored speck far in the distance, its light blue roof barely visible against the deep cerulean of the sky.
“See that building?” he said, standing on a hill above a Hawaii National Guard blockade near the burn zone. “That was my property.”
Its colorful wall and roof are all that remain of the apartment complex Miyamoto managed before an Aug. 8 wildfire tore through Lahaina, killing 97 people and displacing thousands more.
A second building managed by the company that employs Miyamoto also burned to the ground. Everyone who lived in both buildings survived, he said.
Miyamoto and other residents returned to Lahaina to look for their belongings and assess the damage in the days after the fire, before federal officials blocked roads and set up security checkpoints accessible only to authorized workers.
On Monday, an initial round of residents displaced by the vicious wildfire began the painful journey home, marking the first time they have been allowed inside the disaster zone to see their empty properties.
Cars trickled into a Hawaii National Guard security checkpoint, some carrying residents in head-to-toe protective gear, who were escorted onto their properties as volunteers stood by to help them safely sift through the wreckage.
“They are standing in front of a loved one and saying goodbye,” volunteer Todd Taylor said. “It’s very important for these homeowners to look through that ash and see what’s there.”
Leading up to Monday’s re-entry, some residents had expressed trepidation not only about what they would see and what feelings would arise, but also about the safety of the ground and air even after cleanup.
Others pored through weekly updates from county and federal officials who coordinated closely with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which is overseeing the cleanup of toxic or dangerous materials.
Miyamoto was not among those granted permits. The buildings he managed are deep within the disaster zone, and it will be weeks, if not months, before he is allowed to go back.
“It’s frustrating,” he said. “You want to have closure.”
Re-entry comes after nearly seven weeks of cleanup following the Lahaina wildfire. It was one of three fires that terrorized Maui that day and destroyed more than 2,000 buildings, most of them homes.
Darryl Oliveira, the interim administrator of the Maui Emergency Management Agency, said that the agency granted permits for 23 parcels Monday and that 16 families had entered by midday.
He said officials are trying to prevent potentially dangerous or toxic dust from dispersing and are asking families to tread lightly on the land.
Oliveira said he expects to “pick up the pace” of the operation and to announce the reopening of more zones by the end of the week, with the goal of completing Lahaina re-entries within one to two months, depending on how quickly the EPA can finish cleanup.
“People are taken aback by the extent of the destruction,” he said, adding that he saw one family pause in prayer before walking onto their property.
Miyamoto followed a similar ritual when he returned to the site of his apartment shortly after the fire, before federal officials blocked off large swaths of Lahaina.
He recalls taking a deep breath before he looked through the remnants of the home he shared with his wife, his adult daughter, two grandchildren and their mother, the ex-girlfriend of his adult son.
The son lived downstairs in a separate unit with his current girlfriend. The family liked it that way, Miyamoto said: “We were always under one roof.”
Miyamoto said that in finding his way around the ruins, he mapped the apartment’s layout in his mind, using a melted steel bed frame to locate the spot where his wife stored her jewelry in their bedroom.
He hoped to find her wedding ring, but he instead discovered clumps of gold he presumed to be the remnants of her valuables. The clumps, brass metal plates and a ceramic bowl given to his wife by her grandmother were the only items to survive, he said.
“I don’t know how the hell that thing made it,” Miyamoto said of the bowl.
His wife, Gabriella, has not returned to Lahaina since August, and she most likely never will, they both said. She wakes up shaking in the middle of the night from terrifying images that haunt her dreams when she tries to sleep.
Gabriella no longer plays music loudly or sings along to her favorite songs. Instead, she keeps a bag packed with her few surviving belongings nearby in case another fire comes to claim her.
At night, she replays her harrowing escape: the thick black smoke, the faces she saw as she tried to drive down the streets, the 2½ hours she waited in traffic praying she would make it to safety.
“My dreams consume me,” she said in a shaky voice. “I can’t live on Maui anymore.”
Gabriella plans to visit family in her native Mexico for a month or more while her husband tries to rebuild their life in Hawaii. He hopes to maybe buy a condo on Oahu, where Gabriella feels safe, and fly between there and Maui for work.
Miyamoto said he is impatient to secure a coveted permit from the county that will allow him to return to his apartment and retrieve the diamond from his wife’s wedding ring. If he finds it, they plan to have a new one forged.
