Roaring Fork family loses all in Maui wildfire but are grateful for their lives

News News | Aug 17, 2023

As the Lahaina wildfire burned, Aspen native Jeremy Baldwin, now a Maui resident, heard explosions closer and closer. He now believes the sounds may have been car gas tanks or power-line transformers bursting from the intense heat.

Power was out in his neighborhood, so there was no TV to warn residents how close the blaze was. There were also no sirens and no cellphone alerts warning him the deadliest wildfire in American history was coming closer. The one road from Baldwin’s Lahaina subdivision was jammed with motionless vehicles.

He remembers a city bus packed with people, some of them weeping, trapped in the traffic.

Here’s the analogy the family uses, so Aspenites can envision the scene: Imagine every Aspen resident, first-responder, and tourist trying to escape on the narrow road through Independence Pass.

And Maui was being blasted by hot winds from an offshore hurricane.

“It felt like a giant blow dryer aimed at us, knocking down tree limbs on roads,” Baldwin said.

Somehow, a lone policeman managed to drive into the neighborhood. He yelled over and over through a bullhorn, “Evacuate now! The fire is coming!”

Baldwin says the night sky was bright red, and the horizon was blazing. Lahaina residents on top of the hills didn’t have time to drive the winding roads.

“They fled down the hillsides driving through fences, broke down gates,” he said.

Now, the one possession Jeremy, wife Elisha, and their kids still have is the vehicle they escaped in. Their Maui home, landscaping business, Elisha’s pottery studio, their vintage Airstream trailer, Jeremy’s wood sculpting workshop, and their chicken coop were incinerated.

But they are grateful to have their lives. The death toll was 106 as of Wednesday. And they are staying in a friend’s Kihei condo on Maui’s southern coast.

“I have 10 landscaping employees that I’m worried about now,” Baldwin told The Aspen Times, adding one worker, who was a recent immigrant, distrusted banks in his homeland. The worker kept his money in what he called “his rubber-band bank,” Baldwin sighed deeply. “His savings were all in cash wrapped in rubber bands. It all burned.”

Baldwin grew up near El Jebel, then launched a career as a Roaring Fork Valley landscaper and “log cabin mansion builder.” Hard economic times in the form of the 2008 recession prompted him, his wife, and their four kids to make a new home in Maui, where landscaping work was then more plentiful. But the family came back to visit Aspen as often as possible.

Baldwin says his love of Aspen’s sports and arts scene made him the person he is today: athletic, artistic, adventure loving. His father, Robert, was a Holy Cross Energy high-voltage lineman who lobbied hard for placing power lines underground.

“That change lessens the risk of wildfires caused by downed power lines and saves lives; I’m so proud of my father,” Baldwin said.

The cause of the Maui fire was still unknown as of Tuesday. Lahaina’s 19th-century wooden buildings were blamed by some news accounts for fueling the rapidity of the fire. But the Baldwins’ cinderblock home was destroyed. He described what he found when he visited the rubble on Tuesday.

“Pieces of cinderblock wall still standing; they shimmered almost like crystal like the fire had altered them,” he explained. “When I touched them, they crumbled into ash. My wife’s car tires melted.”

The Baldwins are using their escape vehicle to drive supplies from volunteer nonprofits like Maui Strong to distribution points.

When asked if there was anything Aspen residents could do for him, Baldwin replied, “If folks have homes in Hawaii and need landscaping, I’d love it if they would consider me for contracts. I want to help my workers recover.”

His sister-in-law Maya Halverson set up a GoFundMe page for the Baldwins. She lives in Ojai, California, but loves visiting Aspen.

“People there have big hearts, and they know how to throw a great party,” she told The Aspen Times. “If anyone can throw a good fundraiser for Maui’s wildfire survivors, it’s Aspen.”

To reach Lynda Edwards, email her at [email protected].

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The Baldwin family.