“You see a lot of long, long branches with hundreds of leaves back on the tree,” said Duane Sparkman, Maui county arborist committee chair, as The Associated Press reported. Sparkman added that some of the great banyan’s branches have begun to produce fruit. “It’s pretty amazing to see that much of the tree come back.”
A team of volunteers and arborists has helped the banyan recover and rejuvenate after being scorched by the blaze. The ancient tree has been a gathering place for generations, reaching 60 feet into the sky, with multiple trunks covering almost an acre of land. Its leaves provide shade from the intense Maui sun, while its branches offer a nesting place for the island’s tropical birds.
“The rest of the block (mauka of the tree and Front Street) was one-story (buildings), and it had these two giant monkeypod trees between the banyan and the buildings across the street,” said Maui County Arborist Tim Griffith, as reported by Maui Now. “So that section didn’t burn as hot. The fire hit the monkeypods, went up the monkeypods, and kind of just flashed over the top. The monkeypods went up, died almost instantly. The bark started falling off within weeks. So they definitely took the brunt (of the fire) and acted as blockers for the banyan.”
Griffith explained that, though the tree’s leaves were affected, “nothing down below was really burned. There’s no char on the trunks.”
He added that even most of the wooden benches beneath the tree survived, as well as the lamps, also made of wood.
“So, it was more of a flash over the top, as opposed to just the fire coming in at ground level,” Griffith said.