Maui officials sound emergency sirens and evacuate residents as wildfire threatens north shore town

HONOLULU (AP) — Officials on the Hawaiian island of Maui went door-to-door evacuating residents from a wildfire Tuesday and sounded emergency sirens.

There were no estimates on the size of the fire that was first reported at 1:30 p.m.

“Leave immediately!” said one alert from Maui Emergency Management Agency. “”There is a dangerous threat to life and property.”

Paia is a former sugar plantation town that has become popular with windsurfers. It is on Maui’s north shore, on the other side of the island from Lahaina, which was destroyed by a deadly wildfire in 2023.

Paia resident Rod Antone was trying to coordinate evacuation of his elderly parents. “It’s nerve-wracking,” he said. “Hopefully nothing happens to the neighborhood.”

Antone was working in a county building in Wailuku where he listened to radio updates but didn’t hear the sirens. In the hours before a wildfire engulfed the town of Lahaina in 2023, Maui County officials failed to activate sirens.

Antone noted that winds didn’t feel particularly strong Tuesday, unlike in August 2023 when wind-whipped flames burned Lahaina and left 102 people dead. But like Lahaina, Paia is surrounded by dry brush, he said.