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Inside the Lahaina burn zone on a hot Wednesday afternoon, Gene Milne stood on his lot on Malanai Street, showing reporters the newly built wood frame of the ohana unit he’d built himself.

The 672-square-foot building was almost ready for trusses that will hold up his roof. Milne is the first residential property owner to begin rebuilding, nearly 11 months after the Aug. 8 fire that destroyed much of Lahaina and killed at least 102 people.

Milne, a 60-year-old IT project manager, had a bit of a head start. He already had open permits for the 1,700-square-foot main home that was about 70% complete when it burned down. The ohana unit was only a year old, and it only took three days to get a permit for a replacement ohana once Maui County began processing permit applications.

Still, Milne said, getting to this point has not been easy. He and his wife briefly thought about selling their land when they were not getting answers to questions about soil sampling. But they both love Maui. So he persevered.

The wildfire destroyed more than 2,200 structures, including homes, businesses, historical buildings and an elementary school. Since then, the impact zone has been blocked off with miles of black-tarp barriers and heavily guarded. Access has been limited to recovery personnel and workers. Residents and property owners have slowly been allowed back in, sometimes taking journalists with them.

On Wednesday, Maui County Mayor Richard Bissen led a tour of Hawaii reporters who had been been invited by officials to view some parts of the burn zone.

“We’re here today to show you the progress,” Bissen said while standing under the town’s iconic 151-year-old banyan tree that was again full of shiny green leaves.

As of Tuesday, the Army Corps of Engineers had cleared 1,283 residential lots out of 1,399, with all the soil sampling and final gravel cover completed on 870 of the properties. Property owners must complete right of entry forms before the Corps can do the cleanup and only seven property owners had not yet done that.

Col. Eric Swenson, who is leading the Lahaina recovery effort for the Corps, said Wednesday the missions to clear residential and commercial debris are both ahead of schedule, with all the work projected to be done by February at the latest.

“Those owners can apply for new building permits,” Swenson said.

About 30% of the 159 commercial properties on the Corps’ list have been cleared.

Swenson was standing in front of what used to be the Outlets of Maui, which was mostly now a cleared lot of about 9 acres.

Commercial property owners have not been as quick to complete the Corps’ right of entry forms with some hoping they can save expensive foundations and other things that the Corps automatically removes. About 61 had yet to turn in the forms.

John Smith, who runs the county’s highways division and is leading its infrastructure restoration efforts, said 63% of the sewers in the burn zone have been restored and all property owners should have sewer access by the end of year. All of the burn zone water lines, despite being contaminated, are on track to be restored by August.

“That doesn’t mean that it’s all going to be perfect,” Smith said. “There’s a lot more repair projects coming, but the focus is if people want to rebuild, they’ll have the option.”

The county’s Office of Recovery, which was created after the fires, will open an office at the Lahaina Gateway on Monday. The county already has opened a similar office in Kahului. At both, vendor 4LEAF helps property owners to expedite disaster recovery building permits.

As of Wednesday, 23 permits had been issued in the burn zone and 70 were under review, according to the county.

The county also is holding the last of five rebuilding workshops on Saturday, this one about the historic and business district, to get input from the community for its master plan that is expected to be ready by the end of the year.

In another nearby neighborhood, Kim Ball also showed off his cleared lot and utility work that has been completed.

“This was the best neighborhood in Lahaina, bar none,” said Ball, a business owner and a longtime wrestling coach at Lahainaluna High School. He said all 67 homes in the neighborhood were locally owned.

Ball, who is in his 70s, said when he asked a builder if he could get his house on Komo Mai Street rebuilt in his lifetime the builder replied: “Absolutely. As soon as the permit office opened, he was ready to go with our plans.”

When Ball learned from his son that his home had burned to the ground, he said he was shellshocked for a couple of days. Two other homes of his family also had burned.

Ball is a member of the mayor’s Lahaina Advisory Committee and has been working on fire recovery efforts, while also working on his own family’s healing.

“Ten months out, I didn’t think we would be this far along,” he said.