Maui Widlfire: Nearly 100-Year Old Wood House Escapes Devastating Wildfire By Surrounding Open Space

An almost 100-year-old wood house managed to escape the terrible wildfire that ravaged Maui. According to experts, it was preserved by the open space surrounding the house and some construction choices.

Devastating Wildfire in Maui

Almost every building in the historic town of Lahaina was destroyed by the flames that ravaged Maui earlier this month, yet one wooden house in the middle of it all managed to escape unharmed.

According to experts, this property with a red roof provides a critical lesson in wildfire safety.

Trip Millikin, the home's owner, claimed that the white, red-roofed building seemed to have been photo-shopped in, given the surrounding rubble. The automobile in the driveway even appears unharmed.

The Millikins made a few crucial decisions that meant this house didn't satisfy the criteria for ignition, according to Pat Durland, a wildfire-mitigation consultant, and Hawaii Wildfire Management Organization board member. It's not by chance or a miracle.

The Benefit of Open Space

The good news is that many homeowners can take similar precautions, including keeping a perimeter of at least five feet clear of all dry or flammable vegetation or mulch around the house, maintaining a clear roof and gutters, removing anything flammable from beneath porches and decks, and installing non-combustible 1/8-inch mesh screen on any vents leading to a crawl space or attic.

All of this makes sure that any embers that might drift to your home have nothing to ignite.

According to Durland, despite what people may think, they are not helpless. He stated that this usually comes down to proper yard work nine out of ten times.

This house might have been preserved by the clear, unpopulated, and open area surrounding it.

How The Millikin House Escaped the Wildfire

In 2021, Dora Atwater Millikin and Trip Millikin purchased the Front Street home. The mansion, which formerly housed the administrative staff of a nearby sugar plantation, is believed to have relocated from the farm to its present position in 1925. The Millikins wanted to renovate the home to save a piece of Lahaina's history because it was in pretty bad shape when they purchased it.

All of their possessions may have been salvaged by that choice.

Atwater Millikin says she's not sure why the house was saved, but she speculates that it might have everything to do with the renovations made to it.

They did not deliberately fireproof it because, according to Atwater Millikin, the house is made entirely of wood.

But even if accidentally, they did increase the fire resistance. For starters, according to Atwater Millikin, they replaced the house's surrounding vegetation with stones.

Durland responds by saying that the first thing he notices is space.

Site Location

Some of that is due to their fortunate location, as the water is guarding their deck. Between their home and those next door, there is a large open area. However, the lack of mulch, dried plants, or tree branches that are too close to their home ensures that there is no fuel to start a fire that could spread to the actual house during the Maui wildfire.

In a guide to retrofitting homes for wildfire protection, Susie Kocher, a University of California Cooperative Extension forestry advisor, noted that if shrubs and bushes, particularly flammable ones, are immediately next to the house in if embers catch them on fire, the heat can burst the window and it goes straight into the home from there.

People frequently believe that a large wall of flames is setting houses on fire, but Kocher went on to say that embers are frequently the cause.

Metal Roof Clean of Debris

According to Atwater Millikin and her husband, they also installed a metal roof in place of the asphalt one.

She claimed that while this was all going on, there were six to twelve-inch pieces of burning wood that were just about floating through the air due to the wind and everything. If there was an asphalt roof there, it would have caught fire when the burning wood debris touched it. And if they didn't, they would tumble off the roof, setting the nearby vegetation on fire.

According to Kocher and Durland, an asphalt roof is not more combustible than metal. Asphalt roofing was perfectly OK. However, they claimed that the fact that the Millikins' roof was free of debris undoubtedly helped.

Trip Millikin claimed that he and his wife both somehow felt guilty. The couple is planning to welcome their neighbors who have lost their homes into the house.