Maui-born surfer Cody Young joins wildfire recovery mission on home island after worst natural disaster in Hawaiian history 

It was a perfect day for a surf session on the North Shore of Maui. Born and raised on the island, Cody Young grabbed his board early in the morning of Tuesday, 8 August and headed out to catch some waves.

A forty-five minute drive away, on the west side of the island, it was the perfect day for surfing but the conditions were also ideal to spark the worst natural disaster in Hawaiian history.

As Hurricane Dora swirled in the Pacific Ocean south of Maui, the storm's low pressure, coupled with the high pressure from the north, unleashed strong winds that sent an upcountry wildfire out of control. By that evening, the island's biggest city Lahaina was a burning inferno.

"I saw that it was going to be windy, but certain things, you never know that they're going to be that severe," Young told Olympics.com. "As a surfer, hurricane season is always scary, but for a lot of us, we kind of look forward to it because that's when we get to surf and you can get really good waves from hurricane swells. So I knew we were going to get some wind, we were going to get some waves that day. It was a normal day, even went out for a few hours to go surf – luckily not in the direction towards Lahaina - but I could have never guessed that that would happen."

When Young returned from surfing, news started to trickle in about the fire on the west side of Maui. None of the reports sounded too alarming. It was only when Young's calls to friends on the western side went unanswered and the first survivors arrived to the North Shore that he realised the scale of the disaster.

And when he did, the surfer, who represents Canada at international competitions, got straight to work, jumping on a jet ski to help deliver critical supplies to those in need.

"When I first heard about it, I was thinking, 'Oh, maybe 10 people died', and then I’d heard somebody had spoken to a fire chief. They didn't really say anything, but they were like, 'Whatever you think it is, add a 0 to it', and here we are. I probably should have added two zeros to it, because that's what it's looking like," Young said.

"All of us here in Maui, we're absolutely devastated for all the people that lost their lives in Lahaina, the whole town being pretty much completely wiped out," he added. "It's been really difficult for all of us because everybody here, in Hawaii and Maui, we're all really tightknit and we all care for each other a lot so it's felt everywhere, over the whole island."

Reality in the disaster zone

Wildfires are a common occurrence in Hawaii at this time of year, so Young was not alarmed when he heard on 8 August that there were some blazes around Lahaina. He thought they were "100 per cent contained".

There was nothing to suggest otherwise. No warnings were issued and the tsunami alarms, which are tested every month, were silent.

Young was so sure that everything was under control that he slept soundly on the night when the fires were at their worst on the west side of the island.

The first signs of alarm appeared when his messages to friends went unanswered.

"I had heard about the fire, didn't know the extent of it, tried to reach out to my close friends that live over there, to check in on them, see if they're OK and nothing was delivering," Young recalled.

"Undelivered. Straight to voicemail. They couldn't make calls. I don't think they were able to until close to a weekend. So no communication from that side of the island other than people going over there and then coming back to this side and then getting service and connecting that way."

Along with the first survivors, videos and images of the fire aftermath started to arrive on the North Shore. One video in particular was painful to watch - footage of the remains of Front Street in Lahaina.

"When I saw the video of Front Street Lahaina, it just looked like a wasteland," Young said. "I've spent a lot of time there in the summer time, I learned how to surf on that side of the island and I have so many dear, close friends at a town that has so much history. It was the capital of Hawaii in the 1800s, so much rich history, so many old historic buildings, the 100-year-old banyan tree. It's somewhere that had a special place in my heart and I saw these videos and it was pretty hard to watch. I was mainly more concerned about the people first and foremost, but also seeing the town, that hurt a lot.

"It [the fire] started further up the road and basically the winds were really strong offshore and it pushed the fire all the way down. The only thing that stopped it was the fact that it reached the shoreline. There was nothing left to burn."

A helping hand

A couple of Young's friends set up a meal kitchen in the first days after the fire ripped through western Maui. They prepared food for the survivors staying at shelters nearby and Young also joined in the effort.

With each visit, he became more aware of the scale of the disaster.

"Once I went to the shelters I started seeing more and more people," the surfer said. "Every time we did a food run and I'd go back every hour and there was double the amount of people and it was like, 'Whoa, a lot of people got affected'. And then pretty much from that day on the word spread that it was that bad."

While helping to get food out to people at the shelters, Young learned that a large number of people on the other side of Maui were still cut off from supplies. These were mostly Lahaina residents who had travelled to safe locations on the western side in the hopes of checking on their houses when the danger had passed. But as that area of Maui is not equipped to supply this many people and with many stores closed due to power outages, food and other supplies quickly became scarce.

Realising that no immediate solution was coming, Young and other North Shore residents started delivering critical supplies themselves via private boats and jet skis.

"I joined a lot of the guys that have jet skis. They do the safety for the big wave spot here, Jaws. A lot of those guys that are out there saving lives in the wintertime, got all their resources, contacted people with boats. We were able to load up supplies and then I hopped on my coach's, Scott Sanchez's jet ski, and we just made convoys," Young said of the nine days he spent delivering aid to wildfire survivors.

"We came together as a community to [meet] their needs right away and we delivered straight to beaches. There's a lot of people camped out at a lot of the beach parks there, so park the boats outside and use the jets to shuttle in. If the boats couldn't make their way to the beach then use the jet skis too. Bring in a bunch of supplies. Just do what we could do. There wasn't a lot else we could do, and it was really hard to see [the people] for what they have seen is probably the most traumatising thing any of us have seen in our lives."

As a first-hand responder, Young got to hear some of their stories. One, in particular, made an impression on him.

"There's a decent amount of people that live in the apartments close to Front Street and all of a sudden they look outside and the fire is about to catch their building on fire. So this one guy, he was on Front Street. He saw all the buildings lightning on fire, the only place for him to go was the water so to avoid getting burned, he jumped into the water and he was there for seven hours," Young said. "He even saw some ash on the top of the water that was on fire and the only thing he could do is jump into it."

Surfing community show their support

Young is one of several professional surfers helping out with the recovery efforts in Hawaii.

Maui's Ian Gentil and Oahu's Seth Monitz were preparing for the season's penultimate competition Tahiti Pro when the first post-fire images made headlines.

While they were more than 4,000 kilometres from home, Gentil and Monitz did not delay in trying to help any way they could. The two surfers got boards from fellow pro surfers, USA's Kelly Slater, Griffin Colapinto and Caitlin Simmers, as well as Australia's Liam O'Brien and South Africa's Matt McGillivray, and are planning to hold a silent auction before the end of August. All proceeds will go to the families affected by the wildfires.

Rising out of the ashes

Days after the wildfire spread through Lahaina, Young passed by the city on a jet ski. Having memorised its streets by heart as a child, now he barely recognised it. The town that used to be a postercard paradise with palm trees and cosy streets, had become a wasteland of ash and charred house remains.

"When I first rounded the corner and saw the town, I was in disbelief because you see videos and pictures but you don't see the entirety of it and you go there and it's like, 'Woah, that's the whole town'. It's pretty much the entirety of Lahaina…From the start, pretty much to the end, just burned, everything. Everything that you had known," Young said. "People can't go back there for a long time. It's going to be years of cleaning up."

The mission to restore the island is already underway. Supplies are making their way to the wildfire victims and communication lines are working again.

While Young was fortunate to receive news from his closest friends that they are safe, the surfer is also acutely aware of how much there is still to learn and the challenges that lie ahead. At least 115 people have been confirmed dead as of 23 August with another 800 people still unaccounted for. In Lahaina alone, 2,207 buildings have been damaged or destroyed.

"From my close friends that I've talked to, seems like everyone is safe, but they’ve lost family or their friends," Young said. "I'm still waiting to hear from more of my not as close friends, acquaintances, people that I see in the water when I surf since I was a little kid. I don't know if they're OK because I don't have constant contact with them.

"But I have a friend that his wife was due before the fire started and his whole house burned down. His parents’ house burned down. Just lucky he was able to get out of there in time. I have quite a few friends that lost their homes, I know a ton of people that lost their businesses. And there's no returning to it for so long. It's like, 'What do they do?'."

Young says there is more help needed. He is using his social media platforms to feature the crowdfunding pages of wildfire victims and to encourage people to donate to local grassroots organisations. It will take some time, Young said, but with time Hawaii will be restored to the surfing paradise it is known as.

"There's going to be a scar for sure, but Lahaina will be restored," Young said. "If there are any positives to bring out of a situation like this, it's how close and supportive the community is and how quickly we were able to come together to help each other. For all of us, we just have to stay strong and try to continue to show each other love, and yes, I think we'll be stronger after this.”