The island of Maui is just a speck in the vastness of the vast Pacific Ocean, but it’s not hard to see why millions of people visit every year, and why there are some who never want to leave. Fleetwood Mac founder Mick Fleetwood fell in love with Maui decades ago and planted deep roots there. “Long story, long love affair,” he said.

“But it’s really your heart and your home?” I asked.

“Uh-huh. People often think, ‘Oh yeah, how many times.’ Are Are you on Maui?” Fleetwood said. ‘This is my home. No other place.”

As a young man, he dreamed of a place, a club, where he could gather his friends, and twelve years ago he made that a reality in the western Maui town of Lahaina: Fleetwood’s on Front Street. The menu was varied: they served everything from Biddie’s Chicken (just like Fleetwood’s mother, Biddie, made it) to cookie dough desserts created by his children. It was also a place where Mick and his friends could play. “We created, I created, a group of people under one roof,” he said. “Instead of a traveling circus, it was a house circus at Fleetwood’s on Front Street.”

And then, in August 2023, the music stopped.

A wind-driven fire swept through western Mauikilling more than a hundred people and confiscating more than 2,000 buildings. Fleetwood was in Los Angeles when the fire started, and he rushed back to a scene of utter devastation.

And his beloved restaurant? A charred sign was about all that was left.

I said, “I understand that you don’t want to be ‘me, me, me,’ especially in light of the lives that have been lost, the homes that have been lost; you don’t want to make a big deal out of it. ” a restaurant.”

“No.”

“But at the same time, this was your family. This was your home. That must have been a huge loss.’

“It was a huge loss,” Fleetwood said. “And as I remember, that wave comes back. Now that I know we’re doing this, I’m like: Okay, this is going to be… a day.“

We took Fleetwood for a walk down the street where his house once stood: the last time he was here it was still smouldering. “Literally parts of it were still hot,” he said.

More than a year later, the Lahaina waterfront is still a disaster area.

The decision on what will happen to the country is still up in the air; the priority is housing for the displaced residents. But Fleetwood says he is determined to rebuild the country, just maybe not in the same place.

When asked what he envisions in a new place, he said: “For me it must also mean being able to deal with music. There must be music. We had it every day. That’s a selfish request!”

But before anything gets rebuilt, a massive cleanup needs to be completed here.

“We’ll see,” he said. “You have a blank canvas to paint on, and there is a lot to paint.

“You have to be careful, even in this conversation, of saying, ‘How sad that was,’ when really it’s about, ‘Yes, but now we need this.’ Ultimately you think: it happened. And maybe what’s really important is absorbing How all these things happened, and can they be worked around to be safer and more aware in the future? Of course that’s part of it. But the real, real essence is the future.”

Fleetwood’s ukulele is one of the few things that survived the fire, and he hopes his dream survives too.

Visit the official Maui Recovers provincial website for more information about helping those affected by the August 2023 fires, and for the latest news on recovery and rebuilding efforts, including housing, environmental protection and cultural recovery.

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Story produced by John D’Amelio. Editor: Steven Tyler.

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