Is the Lahaina banyan tree OK? Maui fires threaten island landmark
Wildfires raging on Hawaii’s Maui island threatened its iconic banyan tree, a historic landmark that has been an attraction on the island for greater than a century.
The banyan tree in Lahaina has been scorched however nonetheless stands, based on the Honolulu Civil Beat. Harm to its trunk and limbs has been reported, together with critical injury to the encircling Banyan Courtroom Park.
The tree is one in every of many buildings broken within the fires, which have been ravaging Maui since Tuesday, displacing a whole bunch and killing at the very least 55. The fires have scorched thousands of acres of land and broken or destroyed main buildings of significance throughout the island.
Whereas officers are nonetheless assessing injury, they’ve reported the injury or destruction of a whole bunch of buildings, together with properties, enterprise and historic landmarks, like a 200-year-old church in Lahaina Town.
The precise reason for the hearth is unknown, however a current drought and excessive winds from Hurricane Dora exacerbated the spreading flames. Specialists suspect that human improvement on the island is at the very least partially liable for the rising price of wildfires, which have quadrupled in recent decades.
This is what to learn about Lahaina’s iconic banyan tree as officers across the island proceed to evaluate injury and restoration efforts start.
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What’s the Lahaina banyan tree?
Among the many Maui landmarks threatened by fireplace is the most important banyan tree within the U.S, which was planted in 1873 after being imported from India to honor the fiftieth anniversary of the primary protestant missionaries to reach within the space.
The tree, which turned 150 years previous in April, spans 1.94 acres in size and stands greater than 60 toes tall. Its 16 trunks complete 1 / 4 mile in circumference, making it not solely the most important within the U.S. however one of many largest on the planet, based on the official Lahaina website.
Additionally residence to a whole bunch of mynah birds, the tree is called “the heartbeat of Lahaina Town” and sits in Lahaina Banyan Courtroom Park, which was impacted by the fires.
Will the Lahaina banyan tree survive?
Whereas it’s not but identified for positive if the tree will have the ability to get better, previous efforts to revive the tree’s well being have been profitable, together with the set up of an irrigation system by the Lahaina Restoration Basis in 2000.
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The place is Lahaina?
Maui’s Lahaina City, as soon as the capital of the Kingdom of Hawaii, is revered for its religious and cultural significance.
Lahaina, which has a inhabitants of round 13,000, according to the 2020 U.S. Census, has been inhabited for over 1,000 years and performed a major position in Hawaiian historical past, serving because the seat of vital royal and non secular happenings.
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House to cemeteries that home the ultimate resting place of royalty, Maui’s predominant downtown space which traces its roots to the 1700s, and the now-burned-down 200-year previous Waiola Church, which was the birthplace of Christianity in Hawaii within the early 1800s, devastation delivered to the city by the fires shouldn’t be solely structural, however deeply cultural.
Whole blocks within the city have been razed by the flames. Whereas the total extent of the injury continues to be unknown, previous reporting by USA TODAY heard accounts from locals saying the city has been “burned right down to ashes.”