Kent State University graduate and award-winning photojournalist Matthew Thayer has spent the past 43 years in Hawaii, working as a photojournalist for The Maui News. He received his bachelor’s degree in journalism news, with a concentration in photojournalism, from Kent State in 1981. He’s won more than 35 state and national awards for his work, including for his photographs covering the tragic Aloha Airlines disaster in 1988.
When Thayer was sent out to cover horse evacuations from the upcountry fires on Maui on Aug. 8, he never expected he would end up covering one of the worst natural disasters in Hawaii’s history.
Sent by his editor to cover the wildfires, Thayer thought that the fires were essentially out by that time. However, when he arrived, he found a very different scene. Slipping a police line to get closer to the story, the Harborcreek, Pennsylvania, native told Erie News Now that he hiked about a mile and a half to get closer to the community. He ended up in the midst of a fire that was spreading at an estimated rate of 60 mph, according to the account he shared with Erie News Now.
Thayer's photos documenting two historic Maui churches completely engulfed in flames have been picked up by media outlets all over the world. Thayer joined the Associated Press for a flyover two days later and said the damage was “almost too much to comprehend.”