Mental health support at crucial point for fire survivors on Maui [Video]

For the thousands of people who survived the Maui fires last August, the trauma of what they lived through still lingers.

Lahaina painter Kirk Boes and his wife Laura have lived on Lahaina together for more than 40 years. They evacuated on August 8, only to return three days later. They were overwhelmed with grief at the destruction left behind.

“There’s the initial disbelief, just denial,” Boes told ABC News. “I wasn’t even registering what I was seeing. Then it hit me. What really did happen.”

Nearly half of the victims in the Lahaina fire died in Boes’ neighborhood, known as Kuhua Camp. Many of those victims were found on Boes’ dead-end street.

“We lost 19 of our neighbors just in this five house radius right here. People that I’ve been waving to hello to for a decade,” Boes said, pointing to neighboring homes.

Kirk said he became separated from …