VIDEO: After a string of wildfires ripped through about 800 acres in Kunia last month, victims are struggling to rebuild and are asking for help. Organizers held a fundraiser event on Saturday to aid farm owners who were impacted, including Ko Hana Distillers. One of the fires burned 15 acres at the distillery, and all that is left are charred, unusable stalks. “It’s kind of the original field that we started with and it had our entire collection of 34 different varietals of Hawaiian heirloom sugarcane,” Ko Hana Brand Manager Tiffany Tubon said. Antonio Vierra, 70, was charged with arson for allegedly starting two of the blazes. His jury trial is scheduled for November.
In the meantime, folks at Ko Hana predict it’ll take them several years to restore their crops, and the damage cost them $400,000. “It was a pretty significant loss. To see so many years of really hard work that has been put into this field to get it to where it was and just to see it in ashes in a day is pretty devastating,” Tubon said. But Tubon and the owners of six other farms that were impacted are turning their devastation into action. Saturday’s event is a part of a larger fundraiser the Kunia Village Development Corporation is facilitating through September called Kokua Kunia.
