'Still strikes you': Helicopter pilot revisits Lahaina one year after deadly Maui fire

MAUI, Hawaii (FOX26) — It's been one year since the devastating Maui Fire that took the lives of 102 people.

A Maui Helicopter Pilot who initially flew over the County's deadliest wildfire in 100 years has now flown over it a year later, comparing the differences.

The morning after the devastating wildlife in Maui, most of the world had no idea how bad things really were.

That morning, Richie Osten, the Director of Operations at Air Maui Helicopters, decided to fly over and see what the fire was doing.

"When we started to see that the whole town was gone and the hundreds of homes gone. We literally were in disbelief. You know, I looked at the other guys with me, and I said, are you seeing what I'm seeing? Is this real?" he said. "We had tears rolling down our cheeks in our helicopter because it was unbelievable; it looked like a war zone, looked like an area that had been bombed, and it was just smoldering afterward, just horrific."

Now, looking at Lahaina a year later... "The big difference was that almost all of the destruction was gone and cleared away," he said.

But that doesn't mean Maui is even close to recovering.

It still struck me as being catastrophic because the buildings are all gone," said Olsten. "You know the historic section is gone people's homes are gone. People died there, so that part still strikes you.

The nonprofit 'Convoy of Hope' reports that more than 6,000 people are still displaced, living in hotels, temporary housing, or even tents on the beach.

That's why Olsten says we need to keep talking about it.

"It's all a major, major catastrophe for those people that live there and for the businesses, you know the businesses are still all gone," he said. "You know nothing has started to be rebuilt, and that'll take a long, long, long time before there's businesses built again where the people were working."

Even though the island is open, tourism hasn't picked back up.

"There's no Lahaina town per se to visit anymore for tourists; it's still tremendously impacting tourism here," said Olsten. Maui is way down, even us, a year later. We're still 30% down from before the fire."

Over 2,000 structures were burned in the fire.

Hawaii governor Josh Green has ordered the United States flag and the Hawaii State Flag to be flown at half-staff from Thursday through Monday evening to honor the 102 lives lost in the fires.