On August 8, 2023, 13-year-old Kaliko was getting ready for her hula class at her mother’s house in West Maui. The power was out, and she heard there was a wildfire in Lāhainā, where her dad lived, but she didn’t think much of it. Wildfires happened all the time in the summer.
Within hours, Kaliko learned this wasn’t a normal fire, and that her dad’s house was gone. The Lāhainā fire consumed the town, killing 102 people and destroying more than 2,000 buildings, the flames fanned by a potent combination of climate change and colonialism.
Today marks the one-year anniversary of the deadliest wildfire in modern United States history, one that changed Hawaiʻi forever and made Kaliko more determined to defend her community.
This summer she was part of a group of plaintiffs who forced the state of Hawaiʻi to agree to decarbonize its transportation system, which is responsible for half of the s... Read more
