During the summer of 2023 I moved with my family back to Hawaii, the islands where I was born and raised. We landed in Haiku, Maui. Twelve days later the island was swept by deadly wildfires and the town of Lahaina burned to the ground. I was pulled into reporting on the tragedy for the national media. I wrote about that experience, and my revelations about the deeper story behind the fire, in a personal essay for The Atlantic. This essay is an adaptation from my forthcoming book, a reported memoir about the legacies of colonialism in Hawaii, and the relationship between colonialism and climate change.