Lahaina dad ferries families to safety

LAHAINA >> Small thickets of brush were still smoldering Sunday outside the chain-link fence surrounding the Ka Hale a ke Ola Homeless Resource Center in Lahaina, which narrowly escaped a raging fire that burned 2,000 acres and claimed 21 structures.

Whipped by 70 mph gusts from Hurricane Lane, flames rapidly spread from high in the hills above Lahaina early Friday morning, threatening the center’s 300 residents, many of them children.

Ka Hale a ke Ola resident Oscar Chavez Moya, 35, had taken warnings about the approaching storm seriously, covering the windows of his affordable rental unit and packing the family car in case a quick evacuation was necessary. The single father of three said he wasn’t expecting the threat would come from a fire.

“I was just sitting there, waiting for the hurricane, and all of a sudden I smelled smoke,” he said. “I went to the window and saw an orange glow. It was small, it was barely starting out, but all of a sudden the wind started blowing this way and I was staring at it in awe.

“I was, like, it’s going to hit — we gotta get out of here.”

After waking his children — Jeremiah, 9, Melanie, 8, and Olivia, 6 — Chavez Moya alerted two mothers with young children in neighboring units of the danger. They all piled into Chavez Moya’s vehicle — eight people in all — and drove to the American Red Cross emergency shelter at nearby Lahaina Intermediate School on Lahainaluna Road.

“I just stuffed everyone in there, and we left,” he said.

Chavez Moya returned to the homeless center and began shuttling other residents, many of whom don’t have cars, to the shelter.

As the fire swirled toward Lahainaluna Road, eventually destroying six homes there, the Red Cross relocated the shelter to the Lahaina Civic Center. Chavez Moya sprang into action again, shuttling residents to the new location.

Noticing the Civic Center lacked adequate food and water for the growing crowd of evacuees, Chavez Moya said he went to the Safeway supermarket at Lahaina Cannery Mall to ask for provisions, but without any formal authorization he was initially turned away.

Chavez Moya went back to the store with a letter from the shelter manager spelling out the situation and asking for help. This time the store manager didn’t hesitate and provided food for him to bring to the evacuees.

Ka Hale a ke Ola staffers Jasmine Dias and Mary Nakooka recalled how quickly the fire raced toward the homeless center. Even as they were evacuating residents, “I could feel the heat and the smoke was really thick,” Nakooka said.

“It was huge. It ran so fast over here, it was crazy,” Dias said.

Despite the crisis, the 149 residents in the emergency housing program and 150 in affordable rental units made an orderly evacuation and ensured other members of their small community were taken care of, they said.

Ka Hale a ke Ola CEO Monique Yamashita said that considering that the brush fire, which started around 12:45 a.m. Friday, burned right up to the facility’s perimeters, it was “amazing” the complex sustained only minor damage to landscaping and a small patch of roofing on one of the units.

The staff praised Chavez Moya for stepping up to assist his fellow residents, even helping them get settled at the Lahaina Civic Center. (Youngest daughter Olivia put it this way: “He’s Superman!”)

“I hope that everyone would do the same for my kids and myself,” said Chavez Moya, who works as a line cook at Fleetwood’s on Front Street.

He said he was willing to share his story to bring attention to the important serv­ices provided by the Ka Hale a ke Ola center.

Chavez Moya, who moved to Maui from San Diego with his family in February, also admitted he made one last run to his home to retrieve his guitar and a briefcase of important papers and “memories,” among the few things the family brought with them.

The center is accepting donations of nonperishable food and houseware items. Email monique.yamashita@khako.org.