The fires began when a powerline went down and sparked flames in Upper Lahaina at the same time that Dora was 500 miles south of Maui. Winds kicked up between 60 and 90 mph as they pushed the fire down into the town.
“From what I've read, they were saying that in one minute the fire would travel one mile,” Murasko said. “It's just impossible and then one house catches on fire, another house and another house, the embers and with that wind blowing, like it did all day long. There was just no way to stop it.”
After the devastating wildfires wiped out homes and businesses, Murasko decided to put his experience with a variety of companies and non-profit organizations to work in helping with recovery efforts. He partnered with others to launch a non-profit called Treecovery Hawaii, which is working to keep the trees in the fire zones alive and grow new trees for residents and businesses that were impacted by the wildfires.
Treecovery currently has 18 grow hubs spanning from Hana in East Maui to Kapalua in West Maui where they have several hundred trees categorized by variety.
“It could be four to five years before the homes are rebuilt and it could be up to 10 years before the commercial area of the town is rebuilt,” he said. “So, it's a massive undertaking. It's monumental … We basically put trees in pots and we grow them that way.”
Murasko said the first step was to assess the damage and mark if trees were alive or needed to be cut down.
The final tree count in Lahaina was 21,000 burned trees. In Kula alone, there were more than 300 acres ravaged by the fires.
“A lot of (Kula) was forest. It was invasive trees, a lot of eucalyptus trees. Those trees will be replaced with something else. But imagine you have 300 acres (that were) burned and the amount of silt and run-off that’s happened.”
The organization was also able to utilize resorts that bring in tourists as plant hubs. The resorts served as shelter for citizens of Lahaina that were displaced, but resort workers still had to go to work after losing everything.
“This idea of partnering with the resorts worked out great because they have the space, they have the staff, they have the water and it's a sense of pride for the resort,” Murasko said. “We saw it bring the employees with the management of their resort together because you have someone that was a housekeeper or it was one of the GMs. He [the GM] didn't lose his house but all his trees burned. It made everybody human on the same field whether you are a high-level executive or you were the person that was the landscaper raking the yard at the resorts ... That was really neat to see the resort step up.”
Treecovery has had a huge impact on the Maui community as it helped bring people together. The practice of planting is also found to be therapeutic for many people and acted as an outlet to the grief they were facing.
“What we're finding is it is very healing,” Murasko said. “There have been people that have come out to our grow hubs, to help plant, potup these trees. And we find out that they're showing up to volunteer on a Saturday. They lost everything and have nothing, but yet they're still coming out to volunteer and they're like ‘it's so healing for us to be here to help. We want to be part of this.’ It's great to hear that from people.”
Murasko has been an active member with companies and nonprofit organizations in Hawaii for 25 years, including as founder of lifestyle brand, Maui Life, OluKai Footwear and the nonprofit Marine Institute at Maui Ocean Center.
