KAHULUI: Surrounded by flames on Hawaii’s scenic Lahaina boardwalk with cars exploding in the heat around her, Annelise Cochran decided jumping into the sea was her only choice.

“It was seconds. And it almost didn’t feel like a decision that I was really making. Because there only seemed to be one option,” Cochran said six days after surviving a raging wildfire that destroyed the small resort community on Maui’s west coast.

The 30-year-old, an experienced swimmer who works for Pacific Whale Foundation, a non-profit organisation, lost neighbours and friends — as well as her apartment, car, and pet bird — in the Aug 8 tragedy that left almost 100 dead and more than 1,000 missing. But she survived, in part thanks to her knowledge of the sea.

“I feel very blessed that I have the connection with the ocean that I do, because I think it helped keep me safe that night. The ocean did literally save my life.”

Tuesday (Aug 8), was like any other in an oceanside paradise, Cochran recalled.

There were threats of fire from the mountain above Lahaina, but announcements that the flames had been contained reassured her. There was also no evacuation order. But in the early afternoon, she smelled burning.

“We saw smoke billowing and the blue sky had turned a dark shade of brown and the wind was whipping at 80-plus miles an hour. It was very, very fast; shocking to see,” the young woman said outside a war memorial complex in Kahului, where she has been sheltering since the tragedy.

“We saw flames, and we realised it was coming right for us.” Cochran grabbed her bag, a scrapbook and photos, and drove off in her car. She also grabbed her bird, Chickadee, but it died in the escape.

“People had parked their cars in the road and started getting out and running. And, as such, no cars could get through. And I realised in that moment that no fire trucks could get in either.

“And so where I was, there wasn’t going to be any rescue _ or at least not for a really, really long time.” Cochran ran into some neighbours and learned that the flames were hot on their heels when abandoned cars began to explode.

Scared, she decided to jump into the sea with her neighbour, a middle-aged woman called Edna, to protect herself from the embers.

“We fully submerged ourselves into the water to get our faces down as much as we could, so that we were breathing the air that was only on the surface of the water, because the air got very acrid and horrible to breathe,” she said.

The women clung to the rock wall on the end of the boardwalk. “We got as low as we could, but at that point Edna and I both started to lose consciousness, we began to hallucinate, I would kind of pass out into the water. As my face hit the water, I would come to again and realise where I was and what was going on.”

Published in Dawn, August 16th, 2023