BREVARD, N.C. — Chris Bilotta stood in his backyard talking with neighbors about the plumes of smoke traveling into the air behind their apartment building in the small town of Lahaina on the second-largest island of Hawaii, Maui.

Seconds later he heard a large explosion as a gas station just a half mile from his home erupted in flames.

“It was then that I decided to grab my wife and get in the car and go,” he said.

Chris and his wife of 13 years, Mai, already packed for a planned trip to Brevard, loaded up one of their cars, and headed to safety, leaving most all of their personal belongings behind in the rush to get out.

“They had 60 to 80 miles per hour of wind,” he said, talking about the storm that wreaked some havoc before forcing the fire upon the small island village that was heavily damaged. “It was actually like a blowtorch coming through there.”

Early in August a series of fires, which according to officials has left hundreds of residents missing, caused 7,500 Hawaiians on the island of Maui to evacuate. At least 115 people are confirmed dead with more than 2,000 homes and businesses destroyed. The fire was the deadliest in the U.S. in more than a century.

Lahaina, the town where Chris had lived for more than 20 years, was the epicenter of the destruction. Bilotta found his apartment complex completely destroyed after returning when the Maui fires subsided. The only personal belongings he could salvage were melted gold bars and silver coins from his safe, which did not survive the blaze.

“We were all boxed up already,” he said. “We were planning to come to Brevard for a month before we decided to move here. My wife isn’t sure about change so we were going to check things out and fly back and ship everything over here.”

Chris and Mai are staying with friends who also used to live on Maui.

“There’s about five couples from Maui that moved here and we were coming to be with them,” Chris said.

After living two decades on the island, Chris and Mai were ready to try somewhere else, but they never thought they would be forced to make the move.

“I had just given my two weeks’ notice,” Chris said. “I have a background in security.”

Chris said he first moved to Maui from Las Vegas just after the events of Sept. 11, 2001.

“I had a friend that used to go out there all the time,” he said. “She told me how beautiful it was. I didn’t know a soul on the island besides her. She said I could sleep on her couch until I found a place to live.”

Chris described the old whaling town of Lahaina as a beautiful place with a lot of local families.

“Everybody’s got the Aloha spirit,” he said. “When I first got there, I got a job right away.”

He said he retired at age 65, but got bored so he went back to work.

Besides working in security Chris said he also teaches tai chi and does balloon animals and magic at parties.

“But I lost everything,” he said.

Chris said he has a lot of good friends back on the islands that lost everything as well.

“I left everything,” he said. “And as we were on our way out, there were houses on both sides of the street as we were leaving. There’s probably – I don’t know – 20 of them, 10 on each side. We drove down there and they were all partying out there, you know, because it was windy. And I was thinking, ‘Man, I’m getting the hell out of here.’

“But I’m sure most of those – some of those people passed away,” he said. “They probably found them in the streets. Some people were trying to hose off the top of their houses. They knew the fire was coming, but it came so quick that I’m sure it overpowered them.”