Stories of survival and devastation began to emerge Friday morning from witnesses of a 1,500 West Maui brush fire that reportedly started around 1 a.m. on 3 to 4 acres near Kauaula Valley. The blaze spread rapidly while fanned by Hurricane Lane winds.

One Kauaula Valley woman sustained burns on her arms and legs and was flown to Oahu Friday morning for medical treatment. At least seven homes were destroyed or damaged, officials reported during a news briefing Friday afternoon.

Earlier in Launiupoko, resident James “Kimo” Falconer was beginning to assess damage to his and neighbor’s homes. He is president of MauiGrown Coffee, a plantation on more than 400 acres in West Maui.

“It’s awful. It’s terrible,” he said.

Police had tried to evacuate Falconer from his home, but he refused because he said he wanted to try to save his three-bedroom residence and hoped firefighters would help him.

He had been up since around 2 a.m. when he was alerted to the nearby fire by children who had been up late at night playing video games.

By then, it was too late for firefighters to stop the brush fire in its tracks, he said. He watched a “huge column of red flame” make its way down from Kauaula Valley down to Lahaina town, “all the way down to the old (Pioneer) mill site.”

Falconer saw at least one, perhaps two, helicopters making water drops on the fire. He said he heard firefighters were trying to save homes threatened near Lahainaluna Road, but that was unconfirmed.

Around 10:30 a.m., fierce wind had died down at Falconer’s home, and he was able to take a break from hosing down the roof of his home. Nearby, at the Makila Subdivision, homes were still burning, he said.

He said he believed that all 50 homes in the subdivision had been taken by flames.

“A couple of my good friends’ houses<\q>.<\q>.<\q>. completely ashes right now,” Falconer said.

He said he barely escaped his home going up in flames and may have been saved by a lull in the wind and a little rain.

“We’re right on the cusp,” he said. “It’s so bad.”

Falconer said he wasn’t ready to let his guard down, despite the wind dying down a bit.

“It doesn’t mean it’s over,” he said. “We could be just in a little lull.

“I’m really, really worried that this fire will start going again,” he added.

Earlier, police came through the Launiupoko area, including one officer with a loudspeaker, advising people to evacuate, Falconer said, adding that he could see houses burning in the area.

He said he didn’t know what was happening with his coffee plantation in Kaanapali, but he said he heard that residents of the nearby Kaanapali Hillside Subdivision were being evacuated for a separate fire.

Falconer said he wasn’t able to live his Launiupoko residence and couldn’t check on the coffee plantation.

“I can’t get to it,” he said. “If I leave here, I can’t get back. I’m just praying for rain.”

Earlier, as the fire was approaching his house, it started to rain, and “that saved the day,” Falconer said. “We were shooting water on the roof. The good thing is you can forget about the hurricane.”

Elsewhere, Puunoa Estates resident Marla Braun-Miller said she had two minutes to free her 22 horses as the fire closed in to the nearby Kahalawai Farm & Stable.

“It moved really fast,” she said of the fire that raged behind her house around 1:30 a.m. Friday.

She said she was woken up by officials who told her to evacuate. At first she thought the evacuation order was because of Hurricane Lane, but then she saw smoke and could feel heat from the fire. She estimated the blaze was only about 50 yards away from her property.

At the time, it was dark, and the “winds were out of control,” she said.

Braun-Miller put out a plea on Facebook early Friday for help to find her horses.

Fortunately, she was able to go back to her property and found they were unharmed.

“We found all of them this morning,” she said. “Luckily, they all stayed around the property<\q>.<\q>.<\q>. We have them secured around the area.”

A barn and another structure burned, however.

Homes on the property were not damaged, she said. She estimated her homes were around 200 feet from the damaged structures.

Braun-Miller said she was staying with friends Friday morning because the area around her property was still smoking.

Kimo Clark of Truth Excavation said his 4-acre baseyard below the bypass off of Dickenson Street was spared from the fire.

“It burned all around the baseyard,” the Wahikuli resident said Friday afternoon.

With his employees, he cut a firebreak around 2 a.m. and reconfigured equipment and materials to spare the baseyard from the fire.

Later on Friday morning, Clark took his dirt bike out to survey the fires around town.

“It seemed like all of Lahaina was on fire, but it was just the smoke,” Clark said. “Was so much smoke out there.”

Clark’s father’s home along Lahainaluna Road also was spared, but flames came within 30 feet of the structure.

In a video Clark took from his father’s balcony around 7 a.m. Friday, blackened lands could be seen around the home. Tiny flame flare-ups were visible.

“The firemen, they did such a great job. They held it off,” Clark said of the fire that threatened homes near his father’s property. “If it caught one house, it would have taken all the houses.”

“The winds was blowing into the house,” Clark said.

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