In 2018, when a wildfire scorched the hillsides around Lahaina on the Hawaiian island of Maui, Kolten Magno was 6, and the experience left him with anxiety for years.

“Every siren he heard after that just triggered it,” his mother, Kim Ann Magno, said.

Then, last summer, a far worse disaster struck — a fast-moving inferno that incinerated much of Lahaina and killed 102 people. Kolten and his family escaped with their lives, driving out of the fire zone in a blizzard of smoke and flying embers. His home was destroyed, and his family moved into a resort where his father had worked for many years as a painter.

This time, his parents said, baseball has saved him.

“We knew we had to do something with Kolten,” Ms. Magno, whose uncle died in the fire, said. “We just had to keep him playing.”

There Kolten was on Tuesday afternoon, playing second base and looking a little like Pete Rose in the batter’s box, hunched over and showing bunt in the hopes of distracting the pitcher.

This week, as their community gathers back home to observe the one-year anniversary of the deadliest wildfire in America in more than a century, Kolten and his team of all-stars are in San Bernardino, Calif., playing baseball, with a trip to the Little League World Series on the line.