Emma Lazzari happened to be on vacation in Noosa, Australia, visiting a friend when her residence in Lahaina, Hawaii, was destroyed by the wildfires that engulfed the western shores of Maui.
“I feel grateful to be safe and OK,” Lazzari said. “I’m slowly hearing from my friends that they’re unharmed.”
Lazzari grew up in Damariscotta and attended Lincoln Academy, graduating in 2011, then received a Bachelor of Science in athletic training from Ithaca College in Ithaca, New York.
With her degree in hand and being fed up with the cold, she packed a backpack and moved to Hawaii, where she has been for the last eight years.
“The community here is similar to the Midcoast,” Lazzari said. “It’s a slower pace of life, and [Lahaina] may be a little bigger, but the people here have your back, just like in Maine.”
Since Aug. 8, the fires have killed more than 100 people. Photos of the island of Maui were hard for Lazzari to see, but in a strange way, she felt that seeing them was good for her.
“Looking at the photos, there’s a lot of weird feelings,” Lazzari said. “It’s hard but it solidifies in my head that things are actually gone.”
The cause of the Maui wildfires, which started Aug. 8, is unknown, but they have become the state’s deadliest natural disaster, surpassing the record of 61 fatalities incurred from a tsunami that hit Hilo Bay in 1960.
Lazzari remains hopeful despite the significant material losses she’s incurred.
“It’s just stuff,” she said. “What’s important is that I’m safe and hearing that my friends and community are OK.”
Lazzari is extending her stay in Noosa slightly but is set to return to Lahaina within a week and is eager to begin helping in any way she can.
“Friends have reached out, whose houses weren’t burned down, and offered for me to stay,” she said.
A friend of Lazzari’s, Montana Blackman, has set up a fundraiser on the platform GoFundMe to help her get on her feet.
“[Lazzari] will return to no house, no clothes, no car and a loss of mementos and memories,” Blackman wrote on the GoFundMe page. “If you know her, you know she’s resilient and is in as good of spirits as is possible at a time like this.”