Loss of Lahaina: Former KTVU employee worries about Maui tourist town

What's left standing in Maui after the fires?

We tour Lahaina to see what's left standing after Maui's fires.

KAHULUI, Hawaii - John Klossner, a former KTVU video editor who moved to Hawaii in 2017, is worried about the devastation caused by wildfires in Maui, specifically to the town of Lahaina, a tourist destination and the onetime capital of the former king.

"Lahaina is a loss," Klossner said on Thursday. "I don't know what's going to happen to the island now."

Dozens of people were killed and hundreds of structures were damaged or destroyed in the blaze that ignited Tuesday and quickly spread throughout the western Maui community of less than 13,000 residents. More than 1,000 people have also been reported missing.

It’s feared that the fire also consumed much of Lahaina’s historic Front Street, home to restaurants, bars, stores and what is believed to be the United States’ largest banyan, a fig tree with aerial roots that grow out of branches and eventually reach the soil and become new trunks.

Steff and Kimo Hoffman, who were visiting the Bay Area this week and left Oakland's airport to get home early, found that their Lahaina home was destroyed their and three pets had died.

But Lahaina was a real attraction for tourists, who came for the beautiful beaches and art galleries, Klossner said.

"Now that it's gone, I don't know what's going to happen here," Klossner said. "It's not just that a neighborhood is gone. The whole town is gone. And it happened so suddenly."

Klossner waxed nostalgic for what Lahaina was like in the 1970s, when he worked there as a teen.

It was a funky town, he recalled, with live music like Elton John and Linda Ronstadt.

Lahaina was also one of the busiest ports during the whaling years and is home to more than 60 historic sites. A National Historic Landmark since 1962, it encompasses more than 16,000 acres and covers ocean waters stretching a mile offshore from the storied buildings.

For Native Hawaiians, the town is a connection to their ancestors. Lahainaluna High School was where royalty and chiefs were educated, and also where Kamehameha and his Council of Chiefs drafted the first Declaration of Rights of the People and the Constitution for the Hawaiian Kingdom.

"Lahaina meant a lot to Hawaiians," he said.

Since the fire, Klossner said that the economy is going to take a big hit.

Tourists are being told to go home.

For example, reservations are being canceled left and right at the rental car agency where he works, Klossner said. And tourists are being

"Lahaina is gone," he said. "It's lost its attraction."

Esri has published a new interactive map with imagery from Maxar that shows the destruction caused by the wildfires burning in Maui, Hawaii. The app shows what Maui and specific communities such as Lahania look like before and after the wildfire. Viewers can explore impacts in Kihei, Pukulani, and Central Maui. Zoom in to see damage to individual buildings and the overall environment.

An aerial image taken on August 10, 2023 shows destroyed homes and buildings on the waterfront burned to the ground in Lahaina in the aftermath of wildfires in western Maui, Hawaii. (PATRICK T. FALLON/AFP via Getty Images)