AMNA NAWAZ: This weekend, tourists will be allowed back into certain areas of Maui, not far from the site of the deadliest U.S. wildfires in more than a century.

As William Brangham reports, the reopening plan has sparked an uproar among some members of a community that's still grieving, but also weighing its long-term revival and survival.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: For the past two months, Alana Koa has tried to put on a brave face for her 3-year-old daughter.

ALANA KOA, Lahaina Resident: When we drive through Lahaina, she sees all the homes and she's confused.

She's like: "Where are we?"

You know, like, she's... WILLIAM BRANGHAM: She doesn't even recognize it?

ALANA KOA: She doesn't recognize it at all.

A couple days after the fire, she's like: "Oh, I want my blanket."

She has this blanket.

I tried to explain: "You know, honey, like, what fire does?

It burns things.

Yes, the blanket is gone.

Our house is gone."

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Koa's house was one of more than 2,000 buildings destroyed by the Lahaina fires back in August.

The blaze consumed old yearbooks, Polaroids, even her fathers ashes.

He died less than two years ago.

All Koa has seen of the scorched property is on video.

She can't bear to go in person.

So, like thousands of others, she is now living in a hotel, trying to wade through a web of disaster assistance, and unsure of what comes next.

ALANA KOA: Sometimes, you can't really take a moment to cry or sit and think, because, if you just sit too long, cry too long, you know, things are gone.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: You hear stories like this across West Maui right now, people who are still dealing with the tragedy of losing their entire community to this inferno, while also trying to figure out, what is their long-term housing situation going to be?

How are they going to make ends meet in a state that already had the highest cost of living of anywhere in the nation?

Last week, hundreds of people, including many native Hawaiians, vented their frustrations at a Maui County Council meeting.

They expressed fears of going back to the old status quo, where they say tourism dominates the economy, often at their expense.

MAN: If you're still talking tourism, if you're still talking building more, you need to either pivot and align the local community or go back where you came from.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Earlier this week, activists delivered a petition with more than 14,000 signatures to Democratic Governor Josh Green, urging him to delay his plan to reopen parts of West Maui to tourists this Sunday.

ALANA KOA: This is supposed to be a time of grieving, healing, trying to rebuild our lives.

And now we have to put on a face and give them the Maui no ka oi, like, aloha spirit.

Like, we have no aloha to give you.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Before the fires, spending by visitors made up almost 40 percent of Maui's GDP.

After the fires, when tourists stayed away, the county started losing $13 million a day.

Now economists predict the unemployment rate, which was just 2.6 percent in July, will skyrocket to 11 percent in the next three months.

Richard Bissen is the mayor of Maui County.

RICHARD BISSEN, Mayor of Maui County, Hawaii: I think for us to be informed on how to -- how to do this build-back so that we can keep the people here, whether it's the cost of housing or getting jobs.

Our goal is to restore our community the way they want it to be restored.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Following the governor's tourism announcement, Bissen introduced a phased approach.

Tourists can stay in areas farther north of Lahaina, but eventually could move closer to the places where most displaced residents are currently staying.

RICHARD BISSEN: That message is to our community that we acknowledge their loss.

We acknowledge they're grieving and mourning.

We also acknowledge the business community wanting to restore jobs, which is very important.

We can do both, though.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Anthony Garcia helps run more than a dozen food trucks and restaurants across the island, including multiple in and around Lahaina's burn zone.

He says business is down 70 percent and they have had to cut workers' hours.

ANTHONY GARCIA, Maui Food Truck Owner: A lot of these guys, they have been with us for years.

And I have to go, hey, I know you depend on us, but this is all I can give.

It does.

It hurts a lot.

If tourism doesn't come back, I don't know what we're going to do.

I really don't want to think of that.

I get the fact that we need time to heal.

But if we take too much time, we might cut our own leg off.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: But in West Maui, housing is an even bigger concern.

Officials have tried to assure residents they won't be kicked out of hotels to make room for incoming tourists.

But many are still uneasy.

Before the fires, Adriana Cardenas was a housekeeper in one of those hotels.

Now she is living in one.

ADRIANA CARDENAS, Lahaina Resident (through translator): I feel like I am living in two different worlds.

For those of us who work at the hotel, we are used to this place and we're used to tourists.

But now that I am living here, I think to myself, My God, how is this possible?

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Cardenas, who immigrated from Mexico almost thirty years ago, received some money from the Red Cross, but now has no other income.

ADRIANA CARDENAS (through translator): Yes, we need the work.

But first we need a home, because there are so many people living in hotels.

We have nowhere to live, and we have no idea where were going to go.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Does this experience make you think ever that "Maybe I have to leave Hawaii"?

ADRIANA CARDENAS (through translator): No.

I have been here 28 years.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: This is home.

ADRIANA CARDENAS: Yes.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Even before the flames consumed Lahaina, the median price of a single-family home on Maui hovered above a million dollars.

That is well over double the national figure.

There is also lack of supply.

Over the past five years, so few new homes were built that Maui County saw a net housing loss.

And advocates say the problem was exacerbated by out-of-town property owners converting lots of once-affordable housing into short-term vacation rentals, which further squeezed local residents.

Tamara Paltin represents West Maui on the County Council.

Between damaging fires and floods back in 2018, the pandemic, which ground Hawaii's economy to a halt, and now these latest fires, Paltin hears a clear wakeup call.

TAMARA PALTIN, Maui County Council Member: Part of the solution is to adapt tourism into a way where it is extra and not the staple.

With people out of jobs from the hotel industry, there are so many vacancies in the fields that we need to have a functioning society, law enforcement, health care, teachers.

Can we put people to work serving our community, instead of serving the guests first?

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Lisa Paulson leads the Maui Hotel and Lodging Association.

While she agrees Maui's economy needs to diversify, she says tourism can also play a key role in recovery.

LISA PAULSON, Maui Hotel and Lodging Association: Let's continue to have our economic engine humming, keep people employed.

But then that also puts money into the state and the county budgets that we can use alternatively for building what we want Lahaina to look like.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Paulson acknowledges that a wave of celebratory tourists could be disruptive to locals, who are still in mourning, but she believes visitors will be respectful.

And she says initial bookings for after October 8 are low.

LISA PAULSON: A lot of people do want to see us closed down for six, nine months, even a year to allow for the healing, but not really fully understanding how it will further devastate us, with people not having employment.

We need to make sure that conversation is at the top of mind as long as the healing and the grieving process.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: For locals like Alana Koa, the heaviness of that grief comes with a long-term goal, to rebuild and stay in Lahaina.

ALANA KOA: I want to stay here.

Lahaina is my home.

It was my home before.

It was my home.

It was home to my dad, to many generations before me.

And this is where I want to raise my daughter.

We need to fight to stay here.

We need everyone to get back to their homes.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: For the "PBS NewsHour," I'm William Brangham on Maui, Hawaii.