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Kristina Lee-Garrido watched as flames burned the buildings around her and smoke clouded the air in Lahaina, Hawaii, making it hard to breathe.

Lee-Garrido and a friend stood with washcloths held over their faces in a swimming pool — the only place they thought they would be safe as an <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2023/08/13/maui-wildfire-started-spread/" target=_blank>inferno began ravaging the Maui town</a>, becoming the country’s <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2023/08/11/maui-fire-death-toll-compared-us-wildfires/" target=_blank>deadliest wildfire</a> in more than a century.

The pair were visiting the island on vacation when they became trapped in the wildfire on Aug. 8. Both of them stood for hours in the pool at a Lahaina condominium complex that evening, unsure of the magnitude of the wildfire, and used the iPhone’s SOS feature to connect with emergency services. They waited in the water until firefighters rescued them later that night.

“There was no other choice than to jump in that pool,” said Lee-Garrido, 54.

Wildfires driven by high winds hit Hawaiian island of Maui

The<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/photography/interactive/2023/deadly-hawaii-wildfires/" target=_blank> Hawaii wildfires</a> are the United States’ <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2023/08/11/maui-fire-death-toll-compared-us-wildfires/" target=_blank>deadliest in more than 100 years</a>. Here’s <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2023/08/13/maui-wildfire-started-spread/" target=_blank>how the wildfires devastated Lahaina</a>.

<b>Maps: </b><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2023/08/10/hawaii-wildfire-maps/" target=_blank>See where fires have burned.</a>

<b>Cause: </b>Officials have not announced a cause, though <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2023/08/15/maui-fires-power-line-cause/" target=_blank>power lines probably caused the first reported fire</a> and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/interactive/2023/lahaina-wildfires-invasive-grass-destruction/" target=_blank>nonnative grasses helped it spread</a>.

Lee-Garrido, who’d served as a nurse in the Navy, had been to Hawaii more than 10 times since the 1990s. This year, she and her childhood best friend decided to take a trip together, in part to celebrate her friend’s birthday on Aug. 8.

The duo arrived in Lahaina the night of Aug. 6 and spent the next day lounging at the pool of the complex, where they stayed with other vacationers renting apartments. Before venturing to town, Lee-Garrido and her friend walked around the complex, noticing that the back gate was locked.

“I don’t know why they lock this gate,” Lee-Garrido recalled her friend, always one to pay attention to safety features, remarking. “We might need to get out to the main road.”

The next morning, the building the two stayed in had no power or internet as winds from Hurricane Dora swept through Lahaina.

Around 5 p.m., Lee-Garrido woke up from a nap to see smoke outside the condo. Through a window, she could see that a cabana at the front of the complex was on fire.

She didn’t recall any alerts going off and thought it had been an isolated fire. But then, thick black smoke started filling their room, Lee-Garrido said.

“In my mind, I’m like, ‘Oh my God, did I just sleep through some kind of magic alarm to save my life?’” she said. “It was the worst.”

Lee-Garrido and her friend hastily grabbed their wallets, electronics, towels and wet washcloths to cover their mouths before heading outside. The smoke was so thick they couldn’t see each other, relying on their voices to stay near one another.

The pool, Lee-Garrido thought, was the one place she knew they “wouldn’t get burned to death.” She and her friend yelled back and forth to each other as they made their way there, dodging the debris and embers that fell around them.

They got to the pool about 10 minutes later. No one was there, and they hadn’t seen anyone around the complex on the way.

Once they jumped into the water, Lee-Garrido and her friend tried to figure out where the fire was coming from and how to get help.

At first, the duo thought they would be okay, as the wind gusts seemed to settle and the smoke died down. The pool house was burning, but no other buildings around them had caught fire.

They hadn’t realized the blaze was raging furiously throughout Lahaina.

The pair didn’t have cell service, but Lee-Garrido’s friend enabled the SOS feature on her iPhone by pressing the power and one volume button at the same time. The emergency services responder told them to stay in the pool since there were multiple fires and instructed them to send another message if they felt they were in danger.

Over the next two hours the wind picked up again, and every one of the rental units surrounding the pool became engulfed in flames. Lee-Garrido’s friend sent a message to emergency services around 7:30 p.m. relaying the extent of the fire.

They heard a loud clanging about a half-hour later.

“That’s the back gate,” Lee-Garrido recalled her friend saying. Firefighters were breaking it down.

Three firefighters helped the friends out of the pool, and they returned to a yellow EMS truck waiting on the main road outside the complex.

“They were angels,” Lee-Garrido said.

During the drive to a triage area, Lee-Garrido recalled looking out the rearview mirror to see that “everything was on fire.”

She made it back to the mainland on Saturday after a few days at Maui-area shelters and later staying with friends in Hawaii.

At home in Issaquah, Wash., Lee-Garrido sat down and turned on her television to see news of the Maui wildfires across every major station.

“That is when I fell apart,” she said. “That is when I realized what had just happened.”

In the days since, as she’s recounted the experience to friends and family, Lee-Garrido has heard a nearly identical response from those she’s spoken with: “You know, you were lucky. That could’ve turned out way different.”

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, BA in journalism, BA in biology

Praveena Somasundaram is a reporter on The Washington Post's General Assignment desk. She started at The Post as an intern in 2022 and has previously reported at the Dallas Morning News and the Charlotte Observer.

Praveena Somasundaram

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Two friends stayed in a pool for hours before escaping Maui wildfires

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