This story is part of Hawai‘i, the Local Way. a package celebrating the food culture and traditions of the islands. Here, culinary leaders reflect on their community's resilience in the wake of tragedy.
Kyle Kawakami still remembers seeing Lahaina after wildfires devastated Maui’s northwestern shoreline on Tuesday, August 8, 2023. The winds howled and embers fell from the sky into the ocean. Some survivors fled burning cars and homes and waded in waist-deep waters for help. Over 2,200 homes and businesses were destroyed; 102 people died, with thousands more displaced.
Lahaina is deeply tied to the culture and history of Hawai‘i. It once served as the royal capital of the Hawaiian Kingdom, until moving to Honolulu in 1845. In the decades that followed, it became a crucial whaling port, and when local industries waned, emerged as a tourism destination in the 1960s—particularly Lahaina Town, Front Street’s wharf of small art galleries and restaurants. By late summer of 2023, the region, home to a diverse group of locals and the fourth largest population on Maui, lay in ruin.
“The weirdest thing was the lack of color,” Kawakami says. “The ocean looked blue, the sand was white, and then you turn your head and it was like a bomb went off and everything was white, gray, and black. There were no trees, no life. It still kind of haunts me.”
In Hawai’i, where a close-knit hospitality industry is integral to the local community and economy, it’s no surprise that chefs immediately jumped in to offer on-the-ground support.
As we approach the second anniversary of the wildfires, recovery efforts are still underway and progress is slow. Cleaning crews cleared ash and debris in the spring of 2025. New houses and old businesses are in the process of being rebuilt. Temporary housing and scorched empty lots remain.
Here, we speak with two chefs and instrumental community advocates: Kyle Kawakami is the chef and owner of Maui Fresh Streatery, a mission-driven food truck with a tip jar that funds community needs. Mark “Gooch” Noguchi is a chef and educator at Punahou School, and alongside wife Amanda Corby Noguchi, co-founded Chef Hui, a culinary and food education non-profit that often provides emergency relief on the islands. In the following interview, the two reflect on what it was like working on the frontlines of this tragedy, and what they hope might lie ahead for one of Maui’s most storied cities.
BA: Where were you both when you heard the news of the fires? And what was your immediate next step?
Mark “Gooch” Noguchi: Part of being an active member of your community is knowing your place. Hawaiʻi is my home, but Maui isn’t my moku [Hawaiian for island or district]. Even though I have my crew there, it’s still their island. On Wednesday morning, I see my phone on and I’m like, who the hell’s texting me at 3 a.m.? It’s dozens of texts. “Lahaina’s gone.” “We need help.” I give my wife Amanda another hour of sleep, and then I tell her, “We gotta get going. We gotta activate.”
We spent the next five minutes losing our shit, then we started making calls. World Central Kitchen had emailed me already and Amanda started talking to the National Guard and civil defense. Your knee-jerk reaction is to rush over there, drop everything and go. But we realized the best way we could serve our community was to stay in Honolulu, make calls, and be a conduit for our friends.
Kyle Kawakami: That first week of the fire, it was a lot of confusion, a lot of chaos. The roads were closed, but by Saturday, at 7 a.m., police escorted my food truck through, like we were a presidential motorcade. When we got to Lahaina, we went straight to the community. I parked on the main thoroughfare, opened our windows, and started playing music. We were feeding the community as best we could. We had 400 hot bentos, 100 watermelons, and 70 cases of water, plus some emergency medical supplies. I think we were probably one of the first to get into the actual burn zone. It was still smoldering.
BA: What was a typical day like as an early responder?
KK: We knew this wasn’t just a two-day response. This was the long haul, and so my role was just to make sure the boys [chefs Sheldon Simeon, Isaac Bancaco, and many more on the ground] were okay.
We had guys in the trenches in the kitchen of Maui College, putting in 18-, 20-hour days. They would leave at midnight and come back at 4 a.m., or even sleep on the floor, to make a thousand breakfasts. At 6 a.m., another group of 20 or 30 volunteers started on lunch and had to get 4,000 packed. Then the next group was rolling in and doing 6,000 dinners. We had a group of chefs that came in to organize and clean.
Having taught at the college 10 years prior, I had a good understanding of the lay of the land and could help advise on the most efficient way to use the kitchen on campus, like, “Hey store this food here if you’re not using until three days out,” or “Use this equipment.” Having Gooch and Amanda, these extra eyes from the outside, was helpful.
MGN: Maybe a week after, Amanda and I came up to Maui. When you have a million people who want to help but not a whole lot of guidance, things can get convoluted, especially when working with these big organizations that mean well. Our war board, [listed] products coming in, what we could use, what we could hold. HFM FoodService [now Sysco Hawaiʻi] would call, saying “Hey, we’ve got 10,000 pounds of this,” or Rainbow’s Drive-In says, “We’re bagging up 6,000 pounds of chili. Do you want them in Ziploc bags?” That’s not something Sheldon, Isaac, or Uncle Reinior [Simeon’s father] need to do; I can do that, you know what I mean? That’s knowing your lane.
BA: It’s one thing to run in with emergency relief, but another to stay for sustained recovery efforts. How have you been part of the latter?
KK: I’ve always looked at the food truck as being an emergency vehicle that can mobilize to feed people at a moment’s notice. We’ve done it multiple times; seven or eight years ago, there was a bad brush fire in Lahaina that damaged or destroyed seven homes, and we went out the next day to feed people who were displaced.
But here, with World Central Kitchen and the college doing 15,000 meals a day, the 500 meals the food truck could do were a drop in the bucket. We brainstormed with Kamiki Carter at Maui Rapid Response to figure out who was facing food insecurity. There were a lot of families who took in others, so a family of two went up to 12, a family of four to 27. So we identified 50 families and supplied them with 4,500 boxed meals. It took me three days to prep; I’d scour the food bank shelves and get donations, like 500 pounds of hamburger meat from Maui Cattle. We did that for seven, eight months. Then last May, we started getting feedback from families saying they were stable and their kitchens were full.
MGN: At Chef Hui, we had a couple ongoing meal programs but just finished our last community event in December, a Christmas celebration for Lahainaluna High School and their families. We came on as a partner for Lahainaluna—and that’s really important. The long game for any community support, especially in times of crisis, is you want to set yourself up so that when the community takes things back into their own hands, it’s seamless. People forget that just because the fire was out and not on the news anymore, our community still needed aloha way after. Once the rest of the world left, we’re still here.
BA: What does Lahaina look like today, and what do you hope it can become?
KK: Lahaina Town is still pretty barren, but we're seeing people rebuilding and some families moving back into the community. Before it was a whaling town and a tourist destination, Lahaina had the islands’ largest breadfruit groves and was the vacationing home of Hawaiian royalty. So there is cultural significance to this place, a Hawaiianness. I’m not part of these conversations because I don’t live in Lahaina, but I’ve heard residents wondering, hey, do we even want to rebuild it as a tourist destination? Could it be more culturally based, more community based? Maui doesn’t want another Waikīkī.
BA: What have you learned about your own community through the work you do?
MGN: What we’re talking about is really important as far as understanding who we are as people of Hawaiʻi. You know, we’re not perfect. But you cannot deny that when you come to Hawaiʻi, you eat our food, you hang out with local people, there is this magic.
KK: It just reinforced and solidified my view of how special this place is and how strong the community bonds are. People don’t forget when you extend a helping hand or a hot meal. You know, the aloha spirit really resonates and you have an understanding of it when you see the community coming together in times of need.
Interviews condensed and edited for clarity.
To support ongoing relief efforts, Kawakami recommends donating to Maui Food Bank, which continues to provide for those affected by the fires and others in need within the community.
