The death toll in Maui rose to 89 on Saturday as officials confirmed another 34 fatalities from a massive blaze that turned large swaths of a centuries-old town into a hell scape of ashen rubble.
Maui County officials said in an online statement that firefighters continued to battle the blaze, which was not yet fully contained. Meanwhile, residents of Lahaina were being allowed to return home for the first time to assess the damage.
Associated Press journalists witnessed the devastation, with nearly every building flattened to debris on Front Street, the heart of the Maui community and the economic hub of the island. The roosters known to roam Hawaii streets meandered through the ashes of what was left, including an eerie traffic jam of the charred remains of dozens of cars that didn’t make it out of the inferno.
Incinerated cars crushed by downed telephone poles. Charred elevator shafts standing as testaments to the burned-down apartment buildings they once served. Pools filled with charcoal-colored water. Trampolines and children’s scooters mangled by the extreme heat.
“It hit so quick, it was incredible,” Lahaina resident Kyle Scharnhorst said as he surveyed his apartment complex’s damage in the morning. “It was like a war zone.”
The wildfires are the state’s deadliest natural disaster in decades, surpassing a 1960 tsunami that killed 61 people. An even deadlier tsunami in 1946, which killed more than 150 on the Big Island, prompted the development of the territory-wide emergency system that includes sirens, which are sounded monthly to test their readiness.
But many fire survivors said in interviews that they didn’t hear any sirens or receive a warning that gave them enough time to prepare, realizing they were in danger only when they saw flames or heard explosions nearby.
“There was no warning. There was absolutely none. Nobody came around. We didn’t see a fire truck or anybody,” said Lynn Robinson, who lost her home in the fire.
Hawaii emergency management records show no indication that warning sirens sounded before people had to run for their lives. Instead, officials sent alerts to mobile phones, televisions and radio stations — but widespread power and cellular outages may have limited their reach.
Gov. Josh Green warned that the death toll would likely rise as search and rescue operations continue. He also said that Lahaina residents would be allowed to return Friday to check on their property and that people would be able to get out, too, to get water and access other services. Authorities set a curfew from 10 p.m. until 6 a.m. Saturday.
“The recovery’s going to be extraordinarily complicated, but we do want people to get back to their homes and just do what they can to assess safely, because it’s pretty dangerous,” Green told Hawaii News Now.
Fueled by a dry summer and strong winds from a passing hurricane, at least three wildfires erupted on Maui this week, racing through parched brush covering the island.
The most serious one swept into Lahaina on Tuesday and left it a grid of gray rubble wedged between the blue ocean and lush green slopes. Skeletal remains of buildings bowed under roofs that pancaked in the blaze. Palm trees were torched, boats in the harbor were scorched and the stench of burning lingered.
The wildfire is already projected to be the second-costliest disaster in Hawaii history, behind only Hurricane Iniki in 1992, according to calculations by Karen Clark & Company, a prominent disaster and risk modeling company.
Summer and Gilles Gerling sought to salvage family keepsakes from the ashes of their home. But all they could find was the piggy bank Summer Gilles’ father gave her as a child, their daughter’s jade bracelet and the watches they gifted each other for their wedding.
Their wedding rings were gone.
They described their fear as the strong wind whipped and the smoke and flames moved closer. But they said they were just happy that they and their two children made it out alive.
“It is what it is,” Gilles Gerling said. “Safety was the main concern. These are all material things.”
Cadaver-sniffing dogs were brought in Friday to assist the search for the dead, Maui County Mayor Richard Bissen Jr. said.
The wildfire is the deadliest in the US since the 2018 Camp Fire in California, which killed at least 85 people and laid waste to the town of Paradise.
Lahaina’s wildfire risk is well known. Maui County’s hazard mitigation plan, last updated in 2020, identified Lahaina and other West Maui communities as having frequent wildfires and a large number of buildings at risk of wildfire damage.
The report also noted that West Maui had the island’s second-highest rate of households without a vehicle and the highest rate of non-English speakers.
“This may limit the population’s ability to receive, understand and take expedient action during hazard events,” the plan noted.
Maui’s firefighting efforts may also have been hampered by a small staff, said Bobby Lee, president of the Hawaii Firefighters Association. There are a maximum of 65 firefighters working at any given time in the county, and they are responsible for three islands — Maui, Molokai and Lanai — he said.
Those crews have about 13 fire engines and two ladder trucks, but the department does not have any off-road vehicles, he said. That means crews can’t attack brush fires thoroughly before they reach roads or populated areas.
Lahaina resident Lana Vierra was eager to return even though she knows the home she raised five children in is no longer there.
“To actually stand there on your burnt grounds and get your wheels turning on how to move forward — I think it will give families that peace,” she said.
When she fled Tuesday, she thought it would be temporary. She spent Friday morning filling out FEMA assistance forms at a relative’s house in Haiku.
She was eager to see Lahaina but unsure how she would feel once there, thinking about the sheds in the back that housed family mementos.
“My kids’ yearbooks and all that kind of stuff. Their baby pictures,” Vierra said. “That’s what hurts a mother the most.”A terrifying wildfire that scorched a historic Hawaiian town and left it in charred ruins has killed at least 67 people, authorities said Today, making it one of the deadliest disasters in the US state’s history.Brushfires on the west coast of Hawaii’s Maui island — fueled by high winds from a nearby hurricane — broke out on Tuesday and rapidly engulfed the seaside town of Lahaina.
The flames moved so quickly that many were caught off-guard, trapped in the streets or jumping into the ocean in a desperate bid to escape.
“What we’ve seen today has been catastrophic … likely the largest natural disaster in Hawaii state history,” Governor Josh Green said.
“In 1960 we had 61 fatalities when a large wave came through Big Island,” he said earlier in the day, referring to a tragedy that struck a year after Hawaii became the 50th US state.
“This time, it’s very likely that our death totals will significantly exceed that,” he said.
Maui County officials said confirmed fatalities stood at 53, and firefighters were still battling the blaze in the town that served as the Hawaiian kingdom’s capital in the early 19th century.
Pictures taken by an AFP photographer who flew over Lahaina showed it had been reduced to blackened, smoking ruins.The burned skeletons of trees still stand, rising above the ashes of the buildings to which they once offered shelter.
Green said 80 per cent of the town was gone.
“Buildings that we’ve all enjoyed and celebrated together for decades, for generations, are completely destroyed,” he said.
Thousands have been left homeless and Green said a massive operation was swinging into action to find accommodations.
“We are going to need to house thousands of people,” he told a press conference.
“That will mean reaching out to all of our hotels and those in the community to ask people to rent extra rooms at their property,” he added
US President Joe Biden on Thursday declared the fires a “major disaster” and unblocked federal aid for relief efforts, with rebuilding expected to take years.
US Coast Guard commander Aja Kirksey told CNN around 100 people were believed to have jumped into the water in a desperate effort to flee the fast-moving flames as they tore through Lahaina.
Kirksey said helicopter pilots struggled to see because of dense smoke, but that a Coast Guard vessel had been able to rescue more than 50 people from the water.
“It was a really rapidly developing scene and pretty harrowing for the victims that had to jump into the water,” she added.
For resident Kekoa Lansford, the horror was far from over. “We still get dead bodies in the water floating and on the seawall,” Lansford told CBS.
“We have been pulling people out… We’re trying to save people’s lives, and I feel like we are not getting the help we need.”
Green said around 1,700 buildings were believed to have been affected by the blaze.
“With lives lost and properties decimated, we are grieving with each other during this inconsolable time,” Maui Mayor Richard Bissen said.
“In the days ahead, we will be stronger as a … community,” he added, “as we rebuild with resilience and aloha.”Thousands of people have already been evacuated from Maui, with 1,400 people waiting at the main airport in Kahului overnight, hoping to get out.
Maui County has asked visitors to leave “as soon as possible,” and organised buses to move evacuees from shelters to the airport.
The island hosts around a third of all the visitors who holiday in the state, and their dollars are vital for the local economy.
At the airport in Kahului, Lorraina Peterson said she had been stuck for days without food or power, and was now looking at a lengthy wait for a flight.
“I don’t know if we’ll be able to get a hotel room, or we’ll have to sleep here on the floor,” she said.
With a hurricane passing to the south of Hawaii, high winds fueled flames that consumed dry vegetation.Thomas Smith, a professor with the London School of Economics, said that while wildfires are not uncommon in Hawaii, the blazes this year “are burning a greater area than usual, and the fire behaviour is extreme, with fast spread rates and large flames.”
The Hawaii fires follow other extreme weather events this summer in North America, with record-breaking wildfires still burning across Canada and a major heat wave baking the US southwest.
Europe and parts of Asia have also endured soaring temperatures, with major fires and floods wreaking havoc.
As global temperatures rise over time, heat waves are projected to become more frequent, with increased dryness due to changing rainfall patterns creating ideal conditions for bush or forest fires.
