For generations, the banyan tree in Lahaina town on the island of Maui in Hawaii served as a gathering place. But after terrible wildfires in Maui, people wonder if the tree and the town can survive.

For 150 years, the colossal tree shaded community events such as art fairs. Its leafy branches protected locals and tourists from the Sun. It towered more than 60 feet in the air.

The banyan was just an eight-foot sapling when it was planted in 1873. That was 25 years before the Hawaiian Islands became a U.S. territory.

Surprised at the tree’s size? How about its many trunks? Banyans grow in an unusual way. Roots dangle from the branches. The roots eventually latch onto the soil. Branches splay out. They become roosting places for choirs of myna birds.

Last week, a fire burned through the island. Brisk winds helped the flames travel. Dry plants in nearby hills fed the fire. When the blaze swept into the town, many of the wooden buildings quickly turned into ashes.

Tragically, at least 96 people died in the fire on Maui. We can ask God to comfort the people who lost relatives and homes.

Some people hope that the tree will survive. It would be a symbol of the townsfolk’s resilience.

One woman posted on social media that she cried over the burned banyan tree and her hometown.

“We will rebuild,” she wrote.

For there is hope for a tree, if it be cut down, that it will sprout again, and that its shoots will not cease. Though its root grow old in the earth, and its stump die in the soil, yet at the scent of water it will bud and put out branches like a young plant. — Job 14:7-9