Ticats coach recalls seeing Maui 'burnt to the ground' as he flew back to Ontario

When Hamilton Tiger-Cats assistant coach Jeff Reinebold was flying back to Ontario from Hawaii last Thursday, he saw a place he calls home destroyed from his plane window.

Reinebold has been living in Hawaii on and off since the late 90s as his wife is from there. 

He was flying out after visiting their home in Pahoa, on Hawaii's Big Island, when he saw the devastation below. 

"It was scary, to be real honest with you what you saw... it looked like the closest I can describe is what you saw in world history class, when you were studying Hiroshima and Nagasaki," he told CBC Hamilton this week. 

"Everything was burnt to the ground. Cars were burnt... just shells of houses and buildings left. And Lahaina, which, as I said was a bustling little community, was just flattened."

Reinebold, who's been working with the Canadian Football League team since 2013, said he remembers calling his wife to relate what he had seen.

 "We knew that there had been a tragedy, but we did not know the scope of it."

The wildfires that rapidly swept across the Hawaiian island of Maui last week led to thousands of evacuations, burnt-out homes and the deaths of at least 99 people.

The fires started Aug. 8 and took the island by surprise, ripping through the town of Lahaina, a historic former capital that dates back to the 1700s and has long been a favourite destination for tourists.

"It's just a reminder of how fragile we are as human beings. We think we can control everything. But nature has its way to even the score real fast," said Reinebold.

Reinebold didn't drive through any wildfires himself but saw roads blocked as he headed to the airport on Thursday. He had hoped to take what he thought would be a scenic route, expecting a road full of