13 August 2023

Three large fires broke out on the island of MAUI, 2nd largest island of the state HAWAII last Tuesday, fanned by the winds from Hurricane Dora. The seaside resort of Lahaina, the capital of the kingdom of Hawaii in the nineteenth century and visited by more than two million tourists every year, was badly hit. So far 93 deaths are counted. Incredible drama.

Fleetwood Mac‘s Stevie Nicks, like the whole wide world, is horrified by the catastrophic wildfire. As she has direct ties to the island – she regularly stayed/stays there in her own house she bought in the 80s and she has family living in Maui Nicks, the drama also was/is a personally related shock, as she explains below.

“As I am sure you have heard – the island, Maui, where I own a house – 15 to 20 minutes from Lahaina – I have been staying at since the 80s — and the small village, city, most magical place on earth, Lahaina, burned to the ground over the last few days. And to make the situation worse my young niece, her husband, and their little boy had just arrived for a very needed vacation before she started up her school year for 10 days.

There was no way to know that this amazing town that had survived so much for so long would burn down and disappear into the history books, leaving so much sadness, destruction, and death behind it in its wake. This island, in so many ways, defines Fleetwood Mac and me and our families. Mick and I came here in 1978, went up to Kula to look at a huge, beautiful house and stood in front of it listening to the gentle magical wind. He said to me ~ “I will live and die on this island.” I knew he was telling the truth. John also lived here in Maui for a long time – Christine never lived here but visited many times.

(Photo AP)

Over the next two days we managed to get Jessi and her family back to us. They put their little boy (he’s 6) in the back seat with an iPad so he would not see the devastation on the drive up past Lahaina to the airport. But they saw it ~ and Jessi and her husband Alec are devastated. Now that they are back in LA and seeing the news coverage ~ they are totally freaked out. My house and the surrounding area was not burned. The wind took the fire in a different direction.

The Lahaina that we knew~ The Lahaina that in many ways connect Fleetwood Mac and our music to the world, is gone. But my memories of everything that happened to me there is clear as a bell.

Lahaina is not gone.
It is just away.

With Aloha, Stevie Nicks