Native Hawaiian neighborhood survived Maui fire. Lahaina locals praise its cultural significance

abcnews.go.com:

As hundreds of homes burned in Lahaina, the only community in West Maui reserved for Hawaiians emerged almost unscathed from the wildfire that killed at least 97 people

LAHAINA, Hawaii — Shaun “Buge” Saribay felt like giving up. Hours of makeshift firefighting with garden hoses and buckets of water across Lahaina didn't stop flames from consuming his house, his rental properties and thousands of other structures in his beloved hometown.

Drained, dirty and delirious, he continued anyway, pedaling a bicycle he found during the apocalyptic night of Aug. 8 to one Lahaina neighborhood he was determined to save as a symbol of enduring Hawaiian heritage.

Although Native Hawaiians including Saribay live throughout Lahaina, the Villages of Leiali’i is the only community in West Maui exclusively for Hawaiians. Part of a program Congress passed in 1921 to give Hawaii’s Indigenous people land to live on, Leiali'i and other so-called homestead communities have become not just key to economic self-sufficiency, but reserves of Hawaiian culture and traditions as well.

Just two of the neighborhood's 104 homes were lost to the fire, an immense relief amid a disaster that destroyed more than 2,000 buildings and killed at least 97 people. Many of the homesteaders have taken in friends and relatives who lost homes nearby. Some homes suffered smoke damage. Water in the neighborhood, like much of Lahaina, remains unsafe to cook with or drink.

“So much of Lahaina went burn,” Saribay said in Hawaii Pidgin. “We no need lose Hawaiian homes.”

Homestead communities across the state, which also are referred to as Hawaiian Homes, represent one of the most valuable benefits available to those with Hawaiian ancestry: land at almost no cost.

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