Wenatchee company working to help save historic Lahaina banyan tree damaged in wildfires

LAHAINA, HI — A Wenatchee-based company is working to help save an historic 150-year-old banyan tree damaged by recent fires in Lahaina.

The company, Goodfellow Bros., has also operated out of Maui for the last 50 years, and contracted with an arborist to help save the tree.

The banyan tree was originally a gift from Indian missionaries, growing from eight feet when it was planted in 1973 to a height of 60 feet today, with 16 separate trunks that eventually grew out and spread over two-thirds of an acre. It’s believed to be the largest banyan tree in the United States, and celebrated its 150th birthday in April.

Recent wildfires that leveled Lahaina also damaged the tree. That had Goodfellow Bros. joining the efforts to save it by “washing soot and ash off the canopy” and then regularly watering the tree’s base. They also soaked the ground surrounding the tree with “three loads from a 4,000-gallon water truck in the morning, and another three truckloads in the evening,” the company told KIRO 7.

Now, Goodfellow Bros. is showering the tree’s canopy regularly as efforts to save it continue.

For the moment, the company says that “the tree’s current state can be likened to being in a coma after a traumatic event.”

“It is a wait-and-see situation,” Goodfellow Bros. Construction Technology Manager Rob Judge said.

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