The Banyan Tree in Lahaina Maui Burning up is like an Old Friend dying

 In 1989 and 1990 my then wife and two of my children and I all lived on Maui. We lived first in Hana Maui and then later in Paia, Maui. It's about a 45 minute to 1 hour drive to Lahaina from Paia which is over nearer to Kahului and the main airport on Maui (there are three airports that I know of and likely heliports in addition to the airports.

I was looking at the damage in Lahaina taken from the air and the Banyan Tree and the Pioneer Inn are both gone as well as everything in that neighborhood and almost all the touristy shops along Front Street there too. The restaurants and even the movie theater look like they all burned down too. So, the core of the city of Lahaina is gone including the Baldwin Home built in 1834 from the looks of what I saw and many boats in harbor there in Lahaina burned up too. So, the most historical places including the iconic Banyan Tree which spread over at least an acre of land are all gone at this point it appears along with most of the touristy shops in Downtown Lahaina and the livelihoods of hundreds of people and their homes too.

So, this is an extreme disaster for Maui and likely the worst thing that has happened to Maui since Captain Cook arrived in 1778. 

So, the problem being often the people whose homes just burned down also lost most of their jobs and businesses in Lahaina too. So, this for Hawaii is an EPIC disaster because they cannot recapture the tourist dollars which actually mostly fund everything that happens on Maui until things are rebuilt and likely many parts of Lahaina will never be rebuilt possibly because they didn't have fire insurance because they thought they lived on an island where they didn't have to worry as much about this sort of thing because I don't think anything like this has happened this bad before.

According to Google Maps there appears to be three locations or more where there are fires. 

The biggest one appears to be in the Lahaina Area but there are also fires between pukalani and the Kula botanical Gardens up on the Haleakala area. And one more in the Kihei Regional Park Area near the coast.

The problem appears that the winds and fires haven't stopped and none of the fires are under control so they are all continuing to burn ongoing (at least at this point).