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Maui Fires: Recovery Challenges Stem From Years of Colonialism and Tourism | Teen Vogue

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“We don’t want to be seeing people on vacation when we’re trying to pull our lives back together.”

On the morning of August 11 , days after wildfires destroyed Lahaina, a historic town on Maui and the former capital of the Hawaiian Kingdom , residents spotted a boat letting tourists into the sea to snorkel. The tourists were swimming in the same ocean where families had recently leapt to escape the flames that had engulfed their homes. At the time the boat was spotted, at least 93 people had been confirmed dead with more than 1,000 still missing , making the wildfires the deadliest in the US in more than a century . (At the time of this writing, the death toll is 115 and expected to rise.)

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