Ekolu Brayden Hoapili and his girlfriend escaped the flames that destroyed the Hawaiian town of Lahaina by car, but cannot shake the images of destruction they saw in the rearview mirror.
"Everything is just red. It's all dust and wind. As strong as hell," Mr Hoapili said.
Sitting on the trunk of the car where the pair have slept since escaping the wildfire that has already claimed more than 55 lives, he recounted what happened.
"I look towards the gas station and there's a fire right there. People's land is right next to the gas station, and it's on fire and I just see smoke, just ash, everything falling from the sky like stuff going up in flames. And I'm like, we gotta go.'"
"I felt like I was going to die," said the 18-year-old, who was torn between the joy of survival and the regret of not having stayed to help people.
"I felt powerless. You know, I felt helpless. I couldn't help anybody."
"Looking back at it, I left so many people... I know I could have done something, but I couldn't... because if I did that, I wouldn't be here."
At his side, his girlfriend, Sharmaiynne Buduan, spoke of the loss of her hometown.
"The town is the place that I grew up in. The memories I had there. Like, every step that I took in Lahaina, it holds so many memories and seeing all these pictures and videos of my hometown just gone, everything," she said.
"It breaks my heart. It's devastating," she added, looking at the trunk of the car which held their only belongings: toiletries, donated duvets and pillows, and a ukulele.
Lahaina, a town of about 12,000 inhabitants, was a favorite tourist destination for the millions of people who visit Maui each year.
Its souvenir shops, restaurants, bars and historic buildings were reduced to ashes by the fast-moving flames, as was a large part of the picturesque marina where thousands of people strolled, watched sunsets and took selfies.
"We saw the smoke, far away. By the time we got in the house - it was like a minute or two - we saw the black smoke coming into our house," said Sarai Cruz, who worked at one of Front Street's most popular restaurants.
"We had to run out, just grab whatever you can, the most important things, and just run. We got in the car, and we were able to see the flames from our neighbor's house, burning already.
"It's a weird feeling like we still can't believe it."
"It's very, very sad," said Ms Cruz, who fled with her parents, sister and three children.
"There's nothing left, it's gone; it's a ghost town."
Parked nearby, in one of the shelters that the authorities opened to house the thousands of people displaced by the inferno, Jose Victoria and his family tried to process what they had experienced.
"This was my house," the 35-year-old Mexican man said, showing images of a building charred to the ground on his cell phone. "It's just like, nothing."
"I lost my home, all my papers, everything," he added.
"That's only what I can think: my wife, my son, and my car, that's it. I didn't have time for the rest of my stuff: my passport or IDs, nothing."
'Like you have entered hell'
Speaking with RTÉ's News at One, Maui businessman Cole Millington said the island is in "disarray".
"It is a lot of disorganisation right now, there is a lot of chaos.
"There is a lot of organisations that are trying to help, but there is just so many moving pieces right now."
"It is in disarray right now it is pretty hard to get things done, but the community is trying to come together pretty hard to make stuff happen, but we are reeling here it is very emotional for everyone.
"It is a small, small island community," he said.
"Everybody knows everybody. I think the entire town population is 15-20,000, and ... I would say roughly about 95% of the town is burnt to the ground, unrecognisable," Mr Millington said.
"It is such an amazingly, stunningly beautiful place, but right now, it looks like if you had entered hell, and it is going to be a long haul."
'Like a warzone'
Tourists fleeing Hawaii's deadly wildfire have told of how they had been trapped without food and power for days, but felt lucky to be escaping somewhere that "looks like a warzone".
Lorraina Peterson, 46, was honeymooning on the paradise island when the wildfire trapped her and hundreds of others in their hotel.
"We were stuck in our rooms for three days," she said as she waited for a flight from the airport in Kahului.
"It was very scary because there was no light. We couldn't use our phones. We couldn't call family."
Ms Peterson, from California, said the hotel had been using a back-up generator, but then that failed.
"The elevator stopped running and some people were stuck inside the elevator," she said.
Guests were finally evacuated to the airport when the hotel ran out of food, she said.
But she was not sure when she would be able to get home, with her flight booked for Saturday, and her husband in a long queue to try to change the tickets.
"I don't know if we'll be able to get a hotel room, or we'll have to sleep here on the floor," she said.
Tourists were taken to the airport in school buses, where they were met by volunteers distributing sandwiches and water.
Canadian Brandon Wilson had travelled to Hawaii with his wife to celebrate their 25th anniversary.
But two days after they arrived, the fires cut the power to the place they were staying.
By yesterday morning, they were running low on food and had no cash to buy groceries, so they decided to try to leave.
"As we drove through Lahaina it looked like a warzone," he said.
"It really looks like somebody came along just bombed the whole town. It's completely devastated."
"It was really hard to see," he said, sobbing. "You feel so bad for people. They lost their homes, their lives, their livelihoods."
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