One of the first places Timothy Griffith Jr. went after the deadliest wildfire in more than a century ripped through Maui's west coast was . The chief arborist for Maui county had seen and social media posts that made him fear the worst.
Griffith imagined the 151-year-old giant had been reduced to a pile of ash. So when he arrived the day after the blaze, he was surprised to see still standing, though its leaves were curled and brown. Underneath the bark near the base of its trunks, there was living tissue, a hopeful sign, but on the major branches, all the leaves and twigs were scorched.
The tree was in a coma. Griffith . Through painstaking pruning and care, watering and nursing during the past year, Griffith and a team of arborists, volunteers and experts have helped it grow anew, coaxing fresh leaves that are now nearly seven feet long, an encouraging sign that like Lahaina itself, the iconic banyan will not only survive but thrive.
“It really is a phoenix from the ashes, and it just gives people hope,” Griffith told USA TODAY. This is the story of how Maui residents saved the with all its glory but also complicated history, and helped heal themselves in the process. Its branches have witnessed love and loss, weddings and funerals – life with all its highs and lows, took place beneath its canopy and, for hundreds of mynah birds, within it.
Tad Craig, a photographer who has lived on Maui for 30 years, fondly remembers browsing the market held beneath the tree's branc.