People forced to flee into sea to escape flames in popular Hawaii destination

While Hawaii is usually a state of sunny skies and beautiful sandy beaches, recently it has been anything but. An incredibly popular tourist destination on Maui island, the historic town of Lahaina, is currently in the grasp of a situation that some might only see on an apocalyptic show.

Each year, millions of tourists visit the island and town to soak up the Hawaiian sun and relax. However, earlier this week thousands of tourists and residents have been forced to evacuate Lahaina after a brush fire quickly exploded out of control, largely thanks to the passing of Hurricane Dora.

Hurricane Dora formed on Aug. 1 in the eastern Pacific Ocean as a tropical storm. It has since developed into a Category 4 storm and is expected to trek into the western Pacific Ocean by the weekend and be renamed as a typhoon – a feat not many hurricanes achieve.

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Despite Dora staying a good 1,000 km south of the Hawaiian islands, well out of the landfall zone, a high pressure system sitting northeast of the islands encouraged its impacts to reach the islands. Hurricane force gusts of 110 - 120 km/h were reported on the Maui island, fanning the flames into the intense blaze we’re seeing now.

“Very dry fuels combined with strong and gusty easterly winds and low humidities will produce critical fire weather conditions through the afternoon hours,” the National Weather Service stated in an alert on Wednesday.

911 emergency services in west Maui are reportedly unavailable and widespread road closures have the western side seemingly cut off from the rest of the island. Over 14,000 customers are without power and people have had to take extreme measures to escape the flames.

The United States Coast Guard has reportedly been pulling people out of the water as they were forced to flee into the sea during the dead of night, 10 p.m. local time on Tuesday. The Maui County mayor has also issued an emergency proclamation, requesting aid from the National Guard.

Contains files from Rachel Modestino, a meteorologist with The Weather Network.