Hawaii residents fear losing Lahaina as fires make housing crisis worse

The ground is still hot here, the site of the country’s deadliest wildfire in more than a century, but this historic town is already confronting another existential crisis: a dire and immediate housing shortage and a serious threat of long-term displacement.

The blaze last Tuesday and Wednesday torched nearly 3,000 structures, officials said, and razed entire neighborhoods. It drove out residents who can trace their family history here back generations, and it immediately exacerbated an already dire housing crisis in one of America’s most expensive places.