A year after the 2023 Maui wildfires devastated large swathes of the island, residents of the historic town of Lahaina are celebrating the recovery of a 151-year-old banyan tree that was heavily damaged last summer, EcoWatch reports.
In the aftermath of the fires, about 40 percent of the tree died in the fire, County of Maui arborist Timothy Griffith told ABC News. Despite this high percentage, however, much of the damage was localized over the top of the banyan tree because the fire spread across a nearby growth of monkeypod trees that essentially acted as “blockers” for the fire, according to Griffith.
“[I]t was more of a flash over the top, as opposed to just the fire coming in at ground level,” he told Maui Now.
The banyan tree has been recovering at a faster rate than anticipated. In September 2023, just a few weeks after the Lahaina fire, new green leaves were already growing on its branches, and vegetation was sprouting around its base, according to the Hawaiʻi Magazine. The rate of its regrowth has been shocking, even for the people who have been caring for it.
“We’re kind of calling it a Phoenix from the ashes,” Griffith told The Weather Channel.
The Lahaina banyan tree, the oldest of its kind in Hawaiʻi, celebrated its 151st birthday in April. Not only is it an iconic landmark, the banyan tree holds historical significance, having been planted on April 24, 1873, by then-Sheriff William Owen Smith to mark the 50th anniversary of the first Protestant mission to Lahaina.
Griffith and other community members hope to plant cuttings from the tree that will eventually grow toward the parent tree and fuse together with the goal of “re-establish[ing] the footprint that we had before,” he told Maui Now.
It is expected to take 20 years for the tree to fully recover, but much progress has been made in just one year. “It is just a great symbol that if this tree can survive and come back, that the community can do the same,” Griffith said to The Weather Channel.
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