After the wildfires in Maui destroyed his home, a first responder took it upon himself to find missing victims.
In an exclusive interview with People, Ian Barnes, 34, opened up about why he decided to embark on this mission.
“I felt like I needed to go to work and help wherever I could,” he shared.
The Ocean Safety Officer was off duty when the fires wrecked his home. He was able to save his two small children, ages four and six.
After losing his home, Barnes joined the search and rescue efforts tirelessly looking for those who jumped into the ocean to escape the blaze.
“The least I could do is go to work and go try and find someone that needs help that had to jump in the water in the middle of the night and is actually still out there. Or find closure for somebody that is missing somebody that jumped in the water,” Barnes explained.
On August 8, the day the fires started, Barnes was with his two children when the power went out early that morning. As a result, he left his home to go buy ice and water.
“I drove through some fire on the highway to get back to the apartment and then got all the stuff outta the fridge into the cooler,” he stated.
Barnes said he “could see smoke kind of going over the building and it shaded out the sun” just 30 minutes later.
“It got super dark, almost like it was nighttime. When that happened, I realized that we should move up north,” he added.
At the time, Barnes was living in a 5-story apartment building in one of the towns in Maui.
“The whole thing burned down,” he revealed.
Speaking on the search, Barnes, who specializes in water rescues said, “We did search and recovery on the jet skis out in front of Lahaina. And then I did that for a couple days.”
“Everybody’s doing something,” he noted.
Barnes continued, “The smoke was still coming off the land. There’s a lot of diesel and gas in the water because the harbor burned down.”
“A lot of boats floated out of the harbor that were stuck on the reef. A lot of debris in the water just from all the wind,” he witnessed.
Although he only has his car and two children left, Barnes told People he realized “what’s important when you have to evacuate.”
He shared:
“It’s just crazy. Pretty much the whole city’s gone. Everything. Most of the buildings are homes, so everyone’s displaced and I mean, Hawaii’s hard to live in in general, so it’s not like a lot of people had a lot of savings and all that stuff. Everyone’s kind of in the same boat. Everyone’s kind of worried about rebuilding and what they’re gonna do or if they had to move off island. A lot of jobs are gone too. All retail and restaurant jobs are gone. I don’t know if there’s enough jobs for everyone to even stay.”
To Barnes, Maui holds a special place in his heart after living there for over a decade.
“I’ve lived here 13 years. My kids were born here. This is all they know,” he said.
He continued, “This is my home now and I know they’ve given back so much to me, this community and all of people. And I just felt like if I could do anything, I had to.”
A GoFundMe page has been set up to help Barnes and other families who were affected by the fires.
According to NBC News, over 100 people have been confirmed dead.
