Lahaina man who sprang into action on night of wildfires still has same plea: ‘We need help’
HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) - One of the first people the Hawaii News Now crew met in Lahaina the morning after the Aug. 8, 2023 fires was Kekoa Lansford.
His emotions were so raw after spending the entire night rescuing people from the flames.
HNN connected with him again a year later and this hero had a clear message: all of Lahaina still needs help.
“I’m doing alright. Hanging in there,” Lansford said, from his rental home in Honokowai.
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He’s also able to smile again after so much tragedy — something almost unimaginable a year ago as the heartbreak of what happened in Lahaina was still so fresh.
“If you guys can imagine what hell look like on earth, that’s what it looked like,” Lansford told HNN the morning of Aug. 9, 2023. “Still get dead bodies floating and on the seawall. They’ve been sitting there since last night. We’ve been pulling people out since last night, trying to save people’s lives.”
Lansford got his family to safety as the flames engulfed Lahaina the day of the disaster. Then he went back into the inferno and risked his life to save others.
“And we just, if I saw somebody, I helped them,” he said. “This is one nationwide issue at this point. Yeah, we need help. A lot of help. We got to get people down here.”
His passionate plea made headlines around the world.
Now, a year later, his message is still clear.
“My plea is still the same. It is a nationwide issue. Fires are happening everywhere now. But I want to be more specific, we need help to rebuild,” he said.
Lansford lost his home in the fire. He’s frustrated that he may not be able to rebuild it.
“It’s not just not affordable. The cost is ridiculous to attempt to build right now. If I were to rebuild my home as it was, as it was standing today, I’m looking at like $1.2 million to rebuild it as it was,” he said.
“The idea that we have to get permits that we already had is asinine. I think it’s unfair. And I think that more than unfair, I think it’s wrong.”
Lansford wants more opportunities provided by the state, county, or federal government to help Lahaina residents pay for the rebuild — because Lahaina will never recover if its people can’t return.
“We have a serious battle or issue on our hands as local people. Not just Hawaiians, but local people in Lahaina. And we need to stick together,” Lansford told HNN. “We suffered, our families suffered, and we smiled, and we stuck together, and the old timers and their stories can prove that. And we’re not looking for a handout. We’re looking for a hand up that we deserve.”
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