BOISE, Idaho — In August, at least 97 people died after a wildfire ripped through Maui. Among those killed was Boise woman Laurie Allen who moved to Lahaina with her husband Perry more than 10 years ago.
Their friends Jason and Michelle Brixey, also from Boise, were visiting them when the tragedy struck. The couple shared their story with KTVB, what those moments on the island were like and how they have been coping since losing their friend.
"We had such a great time beforehand with them hiking and going to dinner, meeting them at the beach," Michelle said.
In a matter of minutes all of that changed.
"It was two months ago, Sunday, that this all happened. And it's still so hard. So hard," Michelle said.
They were visiting their friends Perry and Laurie in August when the fire broke out in Lahaina. The Brixey's said the first sign that anything was wrong was when the power went out. Then came the strong wind gusts.
"We went down to Safeway, and it was like, everybody was there," Michelle said.
They tried to go to the next town but the roads were blocked off. They went back to their hotel room.
"And then I looked up on the hill, and I saw a fire and Laurie and Perry lived right up on that hill about a mile away from where we were staying on Front Street. So I called Lori and said, you know, the fire looks really close to your place. Do you need to come here? And she said, Yeah, I'm putting my stuff in the car right now," she said.
15 minutes later, Michelle said she texted Laurie if to see if she was still on her way.
"And she said the fires blocking the road. I'm gonna have to head up north and I said, 'okay, so you're going to the evacuation points. I think they evacuate everybody to the high school that was up near there,' She said yes," Michelle said.
That was the last time she heard from Laurie that day.
"I looked out the window and it was a wall of fire right outside our hotel," Michelle said. "We went and grabbed our luggage and ran down the flights of stairs and our car is actually underneath the buildings that were on fire."
"The worst thing was when we started hearing all the explosions, when it would hit a gas station or vehicles. That was scary. It was like a warzone," Michelle said.
It took them almost four hours to drive what would normally take 30 to 40 minutes.
"It was just so chaotic that nobody knew what was going on. We never heard fire vehicles going to put the fire out," Michelle said.
The two of them, along with others, stayed the night in their car in the parking lot of a Walmart.
The next morning Perry called Jason and said Laurie had been caught in the fire and was burned.
"She was trying to help her neighbor. They were kind of in denial, even though the house was burning, and she was making them get in the car, and then a tree block the road. The police directed them another way into the smoke and fire instead, she could see blue skies behind them," she said. "So she went that way, couldn't see and Perry was actually on the phone with her why this was happening. She just told him, what I can see is black. And he was begging her a long time to just leave and just you know, get out."
They said that was the type of person she was. Someone who was always helping other people.
"She had the biggest heart. When they found her, the only thing she could say was her husband's name and his phone number so they could get a hold of him," Michelle said.
An ambulance took her across the island to the airport and she was then flown to a burn center on Oahu. Her husband Perry was at work on the other side of the island.
Laurie was in the hospital 53 days before she passed away.
"She was burned on over 75% of her body of it," Jason said. "Yeah. So it was really bad.The first couple of weeks, she was pretty coherent and good, she could talk, she told the story about what happened,"
"And gradually, she just, you know, kind of deteriorated, her internal organs had started to shut down.
And Perry's mindset was always that she would recover. I mean, it wasn't till the very end, I think that he finally accepted what was what was happening," Michelle said.
The Brixey's said Perry was there by her side the entire time.
"He has nothing to go back to on Maui. So which is sad, because nobody can find housing. So he's just right now concentrating on grieving because it's been nonstop for him now," Michelle said.
"She should be safe She should be here today she should be there today and walking around and everything but she was just directed the wrong way they went to them in basically into the fire instead of the out of the wide open road where she saw the blue sky," Jason said.
Michelle and Laurie were friends for 20 years. One a Vandals fan, the other a Broncos fan. On the day Laurie took her final breath, Michelle said she saw the biggest blue and orange sunset ever.
"And I was crying and laughing saying oh my gosh, one last dig with her Broncos. It was just something... I just thought it was a message from her," Michelle said. "She's in a better place. She's not suffering, you know, and she was a hero."
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