Red roofed house in Maui miraculously remains unscathed after Hawaii wildfires World News

Table Of Content

• 'Miracle house' owner hopes it will serve as a base for rebuilding Lahaina
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• Shootz! Glimpses Of Times Past And Futuristic Possibilities
• National
• year-old ‘miracle house’ in Lahaina survives deadly Maui fire
• Hawaii wildfires: The red Lahaina house that survived Maui fires
• BBC News Services
• Viral Image of House That Survived Lahaina Fire Has a Perfectly Reasonable Explanation

"There was a neighbor who sent a note to us and said, 'Oh, you won the lottery.' And I almost wanted to throw up when I got that. I felt so badly, because these are my friends. These are my neighbors. And that's all gone." "As soon as we can, we want to open it to our neighborhood and open it to everybody who worked on it, as a base to help rebuild our part of Lahaina," he said. That risk is highest when the other building that burns is 30 feet away or less, said Stephen Quarles, UC Cooperative Extension advisor emeritus. Vulnerable components would be the siding, windows or under-eave area, as well as any foundation or attic vents, he added.

'Miracle house' owner hopes it will serve as a base for rebuilding Lahaina

When a friend later showed the Millikins’ a photo of their house standing alone after the fire, surrounded by other not-so-lucky properties, their feelings were complicated. So when they finally got the chance to buy it, they did, and completely revamped the property. And doing that may have just been the thing that ensured its survival in the fire. That project included a new, commercial-grade steel roof that likely would’ve provided better protection from embers than shingles. Atwater Millikin and her husband plan to return to Maui soon and open their place to neighbors who were left homeless. While the house had sprinklers, so did most of the neighbors’ properties, and the system wasn’t working when needed because the power was out, Atwater Millikin said.

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The historic structure on Front Street is the last house standing in a neighborhood reduced to rubble. The house at 271 Front St. in Lahaina survived a wildfire because of its metal roof, a lack of vegetation along its dripline, "and a lot of divine intervention," its owner says. Beveridge said there's no way to know for sure exactly what preserved the house on Front Street, but "the metal roof and lack of adjacent flammable material ... certainly limited the means by which the structure could have ignited." Kocher worries that surreal images such as the one of the Lahaina house can lend themselves to conspiracy theories if people don’t understand the science behind how fires spread. She recalled when Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) speculated that the 2018 Camp fire, which killed 85 people when it destroyed the California town of Paradise, might have been started by a laser beam in space. In this case, a regular asphalt composition roof would likely have done just as good a job as metal, as most have a Class A fire resistance rating, she added.

Shootz! Glimpses Of Times Past And Futuristic Possibilities

But the next day, he received a picture – in the middle of dozens of piles of ash stood his home, largely untouched. Suddenly, he had what some are dubbing on social media as a "miracle house," often seen in the aftermath of fires in places like California. "The house was an absolute nightmare, but you could see the bones of it," he said, saying that the local historic building suffered from a rotting exterior.

After purchasing the property, the Millikin couple renovated the historic structure, which used to be a bookkeeper’s home for a nearby plantation. Alongside luck and potentially favorable winds, the renovations may be a key reason why the Front Street home is still standing, though none of the changes were made as a means of fire prevention. Without the proper precautions, houses can "start catching each other on fire," Wara told Civil Beat. "If enough of the homes have that kind of preparation then that chain reaction doesn't get started."

year-old ‘miracle house’ in Lahaina survives deadly Maui fire

Workers with the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands erected a temporary black screen to protect Kalepa's house from any potentially toxic dust that might blow over from a house that burned just outside the homestead’s boundary. People have been forced to take refuge in shelter homes and are being provided with necessary items like food and water. Workers with the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands erected a temporary black screen to protect Kalepa’s house from any potentially toxic dust that might blow over from a house that burned just outside the homestead’s boundary. But when he and his wife are able to go back, he’s hoping to set up his home as some sort of a community hub for people trying to rebuild theirs.

Hawaii wildfires: The red Lahaina house that survived Maui fires

Airborne embers are the most common source of wildfire spread, the Colorado agency's Daniel Beveridge told NPR. The house has roots dating to 1925 — it's believed to have been moved from another location on Maui. After Millikin and his wife bought it in 2021, they finished a restoration project in 2022. "We love our neighborhood and love our friends, and just cannot believe that that world that we knew so well and loved — it's gone forever."

Owner of viral red house thinks this is why it survived Maui wildfires that turned everything else to ash - New York Post

Owner of viral red house thinks this is why it survived Maui wildfires that turned everything else to ash.

Posted: Mon, 21 Aug 2023 07:00:00 GMT [source]

BBC News Services

His group connected garden hoses and he broke down a homesteader’s fence to keep the fire out of the community, he said. Hours of makeshift firefighting with garden hoses and buckets of water across Lahaina didn’t stop flames from consuming his house, his rental properties and thousands of other structures in his beloved hometown. Atwater Millikin also said she and her husband replaced the asphalt roof with a metal one. Trip Millikin and his wife, Dora Atwater Millikin, bought the Front Street house in 2021, according to the Civil Beat. The home, which once housed a local sugar plantation's management employees, is thought to have been moved from the plantation to its current location in 1925, the Civil Beat reported. They hadn't made any efforts to fireproof their home, they told local news outlets.

But more importantly, experts say the homeowners’ decision to replace the landscaping around the house with river stones may have also helped keep the flames at bay. She was told that during the fire, “there were pieces of wood — 6, 12 inches long — that were on fire and just almost floating through the air with the wind and everything,” she told the LA Times. The fires singed one part of the structure, but the only damage there was a warped PVC pipe on a wall. "Everybody's calling it 'the miracle house,'" Trip Millikin, who owns the home at 271 Front St., told NPR. But that label makes him uncomfortable, he added, citing the flood of emotions that came with learning that while his house was spared, his community was gutted.

The wildfires that struck Maui earlier this month devastated the historic town of Lahaina, reducing nearly every building to ashy rubble — but one wooden house in the center of it all survived unscathed. She said as the fires blazed, large pieces of wood would hit people's roofs. "If it was an asphalt roof, it would catch on fire. And otherwise, they would fall off the roof and then ignite the foliage around the house," she said.

Two years ago, the couple purchased the 100-year-old property that used to be a bookkeeper's house for employees of a sugar plantation. The 100-year-old wood house on Front Street is still standing as most of the town of Lahaina has been destroyed. The fires are considered the worst natural disaster in Hawaiian state history.

She hopes to return as soon as she can and open the place up for neighbors who have lost their homes. Atwater Millikin is an artist who makes paintings of New England coastal scenery, and her husband is a recently retired portfolio manager. They have owned the home for about three years but lived elsewhere on Maui for about a decade, she said. Some have also speculated the home was saved by sprinklers, Atwater Millikin said. It did have a sprinkler system, but so did many of the other homes in the area that burned, she said. In any event, by the time the fire reached the home, the electricity was out and the system wasn’t working, she said.

Water in the neighborhood, like much of Lahaina, remains unsafe to cook with or drink. Just two of the neighborhood’s 104 homes were lost to the fire, an immense relief amid a disaster that destroyed more than 2,000 buildings and killed at least 97 people. They switched out the home's asphalt roof for one with heavy-gauge metal, surrounded the house with river stones and removed foliage around it. HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) - Among the rows of charred buildings, ash and rubble along Front Street stands a home with a red roof, appearing virtually unscathed from a devastating wildfire that tore through the community. Photos of the wooden house, standing intact while its neighbors were reduced to ashes, quickly became an online fascination.

For hours until the morning, they alternated between fits of tears and restless sleep while parked on the roadside, stuck in traffic. Unable to get into Lahaina, Alicia Kalepa sent her 17-year-old twin daughters by boat to check on the family's property. It wasn’t until the girls returned by driving a winding and narrow road north of Lahaina that she got confirmation that the vast majority of Leiali’i was unscathed. Keola Beamer, a famous slack key guitarist who lives in Leiali’i, found significance in the neighborhood's name. “Lei” can mean garland in Hawaiian and “alii” refers to chiefs or royalty. Unable to get into Lahaina, Alicia Kalepa sent her 17-year-old twin daughters by boat to check on the family’s property.

“What folks in the wildfire business call the zone zero or the ember ignition zone, is kind of a key factor in whether homes do or do not burn down,” Wara said. Experts say it was likely a little bit of all the above, but that one element of the home’s recent renovation is actually the most affordable and important thing people can do to try and protect their homes. “It looks like it was photoshopped in,” homeowner Trip Millikin said of the house, which stands in such contrast to the surrounding ruins that images of the home have gone viral in recent days. The couple say they hope to return to Lahaina when it's safe, and when they do, they plan to offer up their home for the many who have lost theirs. Instead, he and his wife are using it as a symbol of hope amid the destruction that has killed more than 100 and left more than 800 missing. Kocher said the house had many of the qualities that would help it survive such disasters.