‘It’s surreal’: Travelers fleeing devastating Maui wildfires flood into Sea-Tac Airport

As the death toll fueled by wildfires in Hawaii continues to rise, travelers fleeing the area have been arriving at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport all morning.

Travelers arriving at Sea-Tac from Maui described to KIRO 7 the many great lengths they had to go to to avoid fires on the island and leave Maui as fires raged. They also said many people living on Maui tried to help them.

Jules Toney lives on Whidbey island and was staying close to Lahaina, one of the hardest hit areas. She said the fire was extremely close to where she was staying, which was roughly five minutes from the popular tourist destination.

She arrived at Sea-Tac early Thursday morning.

“Last night we were supposed to go to a luau and on our way the sky was just black,” she described to KIRO 7. “You could see the orange glow of the fires underneath the black smoke.”

Toney’s trip to a Maui destination wedding turned into a frantic escape as fires torched Lahaina.

“There was no power, fire trucks everywhere, there was no gas anywhere,” she recalled. “There were people lined up at gas stations.”

For those who couldn’t refuel, she said that many ended up ditching rental cars along the sides of roads.

The Whidbey Island native made it to Sea-Tac, but had to avoid flames to get to Maui’s airport as natives helped people get away.

“We had to go up all around the north side of the island which took about three hours,” she said, detailing how they were given free water, food, and bathrooms as they made the long journey to the airport.

Oscar Sanchez lives in Yakima and said his vacation was abruptly cut short.

“It was just like a normal vacation on the second day -- we were on the southside [of the island] and they told us that we couldn’t go back to our AirBNB because the fire was so close,” he said.

Sanchez says that when he to headed to Maui’s airport, “it was packed.”

“It was people laying on the floor -- it was more chaos,” he detailed.

Tanya Nathan is from Denver and arrived at Sea-Tac from Maui. She too ended her vacation in Maui and now plans to spend a few days with her partner Jason Podolnick.

Nathan said they knew fairly quickly that things were getting out of control on the island.

“When we woke up on Wednesday, it was obvious that it was a really very serious situation, so we packed up our stuff and found whatever flight we could get out,” she said.

Both Nathan and Podolnick are safe, but feel sadness leaving the people and devastation behind. Podolnick said a lot of effort was spent getting tourists off the island.

“All the people working there were doing their best to get everyone through while they were also dealing with a terrible situation,” he said.

Nathan also felt that the focus should be on the island and the people that live there.

“This will be a really weird story to tell people but it’s not devastating our lives -- we should be helping them,” she said.

Maui native Samuel Webb also arrived at Sea-Tac Thursday morning, and says he is still going on his summer road trip with friends. He lamented that Lahaina, the place he grew up visiting, is mostly gone.

“It’s surreal,” he said. “That place, it’s existed my whole life -- I grew up there, I grew up going there, and I would not expect it to just burn down in one night.”

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