LAHAINA, Hawaii — Authorities warned Saturday that the search for and identification of victims of the wildfire that destroyed a historic village on Maui was still in its early stages, even as the death toll from the blaze rose to 93. Already, it’s the worst wildfire in the United States in almost a century.
Police on Maui have only searched 3% of the area with cadaver dogs, according to Chief John Pelletier. “We’ve got an area that we have to contain that’s at least 5 square miles and it’s full of our loved ones,” the spokesperson said, adding that the death toll is expected to rise and that “none of us really know the size of it yet.”
While federal rescue officials searched the charred remains of the centuries-old village of Lahaina, he talked. Teams used a visible orange X to document the first search at each house’s remains and an HR to indicate the discovery of human remains.
According to Pelletier, determining who the deceased are is a monumental task since “we pick up the corpses and they fall apart… The only way we can identify the bodies of our loved ones is if they’ve been through a fire hot enough to melt metal. He added that two people had been identified. Dogs were used to search the rubble for bodies, and their sporadic barks could be heard all across the hot, monotonous terrain.
This is the worst natural disaster Hawaii has ever faced,” said Governor Josh Green on Saturday as he surveyed the destruction on Front Street. We have no choice except to wait and help the remaining people. Reuniting families when possible, providing shelter and medical attention, and then beginning the process of rebuilding are our current priorities.
Green estimated that 2,200 buildings, or 86% of the total, were damaged or destroyed in West Maui. He also mentioned that damage over the entire island was anticipated to be close to $6 billion. As he put it, “an incredible amount of time” would be needed to get back on track. After a press conference with Green and other officials, the death toll was first reported as 89.
South Maui’s Kihei neighborhood and the mountainous, interior settlements known as Upcountry have also been impacted by flames, however no casualties have been reported as of yet. Kaanapali, a seaside village north of Lahaina, saw a fourth fire on Friday evening, but firefighters were able to put it out. Green stated that 544 buildings were destroyed by the Upcountry fire, 96% of which were homes.
Maui’s emergency responders were looking for temporary shelter for evacuees. Early Saturday morning, county officials announced on Facebook that as many as 4,500 people are in need of refuge, citing numbers from the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Pacific Disaster Center. Those who have loved ones who have gone missing were urged to visit the center for families. We need you to conduct the DNA analysis. We have to find out who your loved ones are,” Pelletier told me.
Those who made it out expressed gratitude for their survival while also grieving for their loved ones who had not. Geoff Bogar, a retired fire captain, and Franklin Trejos, a friend of Bogar’s for 35 years, stayed behind at first to assist residents of Lahaina and protect Bogar’s home. On Tuesday afternoon, though, as the fire crept closer, they realized they had to evacuate. They ran off to their separate cars. When Bogar’s wouldn’t turn over, he smashed through a window and climbed to safety, where he was eventually spotted by police and sent to the hospital.
Trejos did not fare as well. The next day, Bogar returned to his car to find the skeletal remains of his 68-year-old friend lying over the body of the Bogars’ beloved 3-year-old golden retriever Sam, whom he had tried to shield. For many years, Bogar and his wife, Shannon Weber-Bogar, had been assisted by Trejos, a native of Costa Rica, who helped with her seizures when Bogar was unable to. He brought joy and happiness into their lives. Sadly, a good man has been taken from us, Weber-Bogar remarked.
With this latest death toll, the 2018 Camp Fire in northern California, which claimed 85 lives and leveled the town of Paradise, has been surpassed. Thousands of homes and hundreds of lives were lost in the 1918 Cloquet Fire, which started in drought-stricken northern Minnesota and swept through several rural communities.
The wildfires have killed more people in one state than a tsunami did in all of 1960. After a more devastating tsunami in 1946 claimed the lives of more than 150 people on the Big Island, a statewide emergency alert system was implemented, complete with sirens that are tested monthly. The emergency management database in Hawaii does not show that the alarms went off prior to the blaze. However, widespread power and cellular disruptions may have reduced the reach of the alerts sent to mobile phones, televisions, and radio stations.
Wildfires on Maui swept over the island’s dry undergrowth, fueled by the summer’s drought and the hurricane’s high winds. U.S. Fire Administrator Lori Moore-Merrell stated, “It outpaced anything firefighters could have done in the early hours.” The blaze spread horizontally from building to building at a “incredibly fast” rate. The fire was relatively close to the earth. From what we could tell right now, it was nourished on grass,” she affirmed. Nearly all of Lahaina’s 13,000 buildings were burned by the worst fire on Tuesday. What was left was a grid of gray ruins sandwiched between the turquoise ocean and lush green slopes.
Water officials on Maui advised residents of Lahaina and Kula to avoid drinking tap water (even after boiling it) and to take brief, tepid showers in well-ventilated rooms to reduce their risk of inhaling chemical vapors. It’s possible that insufficient manpower and outdated equipment hindered firefighting efforts on Maui. County fire departments on Maui, Molokai, and Lanai are staffed by a maximum of 65 people at any given time, according to Hawaii Firefighters Association president Bobby Lee. Green has promised a review of safety regulations and procedures by government officials.
The world has changed, and as a result, we need to take a look at everything. He said, “Now a storm can be either a hurricane and a fire, or a fire and a hurricane. That’s what happened to us, and it’s why we’re investigating these regulations in the first place: to prevent a repeat. Given the rapidity of the advancing flames, Lahaina resident Riley Curran expressed doubt that county officials could have done more. He saw the flames approaching from the roof of an adjacent building and quickly evacuated his Front Street residence. “It’s not that people didn’t try to do anything,” Curran said. The flames quickly increased from 0 to 100.
On Saturday, a catamaran went from another section of Maui to Kaanapali Beach, where a group of over a dozen people created an assembly line to unload water, toiletries, batteries, and other necessities. Kai Kanani Sailing’s marketing director David Taylor claimed that many of the supplies were for hotel workers whose homes were destroyed and who were temporarily housing their families on the premises.
McKnight used the Hawaiian word for “family,” “ohana,” to emphasize that the people of Maui had experienced tragedy. You could tell just looking at their face.” As they completed unloading the boat, he remarked, “The aloha still exists.” “We all feel it very deeply, and everyone wants to believe that they can make a difference.” Volunteering at a shelter at the island’s military memorial, Caitlin McKnight said she tried to be brave for the people who had lost everything.
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