![Pinterest](https://pinterest.com/pin/create/button/?url=https://uknews.evprotec.com/maui-fires-survivors-describe-harrowing-escapes-from-the-flames/&media=https://uknews.evprotec.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/3ca5a4f8e9719e2f017021356b493d57.png&description=Tee Dang and her family suffered burns as they sat in the ocean for nearly four hours to escape the wildfire in Lahaina Tee Dang was in a rental car with her three children and husband on Lahaina's Front Street when she saw the flames inching closer and closer towards them. But when the vehicles around them began catching fire they decided to grab their food, water, and phones and run for the waves. They had already watched others trying to flee the rapidly moving flames do the same, including an elderly woman who was helped into the ocean. "We have to get to the ocean," the Kansas mother told BBC News on Thursday. "There was nothing else because we were cornered in." With their children - ages 5, 13 and 20 - they at first stayed close to shore. But as evening approached, and the tide rose, the water started smashing her into the rock wall of the harbour, severely cutting her leg. When the line of cars on Front Street - "at least 50" of them - started exploding, they were forced to move into deeper water to seek shelter from the "shooting debris". They were in the water for nearly four hours, she said. It was a Tuesday afternoon, but the sky behind them was pitch black from the wildfire smoke. It was a harrowing ordeal for the family, who wondered if they were going to make it out alive. At one point, one of Mrs Dang's children fainted in the water. They were eventually rescued by a firefighter who directed them through the burning streets. Leading a group of about 15 survivors, she recalls the firefighter telling them: "I don't even know if we're gonna make it at this point. Just do everything I say. If I say jump, jump. If I tell you to run, run." The entire family suffered burns. After reaching shelter at the Maui Prep School, the family was forced to move twice more, including once because one shelter came under threat from flames. Seventeen more people were confirmed to be dead on Thursday afternoon, bringing the death toll to at least 53, after a series of fir){kind=link}
Tee Dang was in a rental car with her three children and husband on Lahaina’s Front Street when she saw the flames inching closer and closer towards them.
But when the vehicles around them began catching fire they decided to grab their food, water, and phones and run for the waves.
They had already watched others trying to flee the rapidly moving flames do the same, including an elderly woman who was helped into the ocean.
“We have to get to the ocean,” the Kansas mother told BBC News on Thursday. “There was nothing else because we were cornered in.”
With their children – ages 5, 13 and 20 – they at first stayed close to shore. But as evening approached, and the tide rose, the water started smashing her into the rock wall of the harbour, severely cutting her leg.