Hawaii Wildfires
Death Toll in Maui Inferno Reaches 89, Says Governor
He said the number would likely increase as search
efforts proceeded in Lahaina, the historic town
devastated by flames. It is now the deadliest U.S.
wildfire in more than 100 years.
Here is the latest on the Hawaii fires.
The death toll in Maui rose to 89 on Saturday, making
this week’s wildfires the deadliest in the United
States in more than 100 years. The number of victims
was expected to climb even further.
Among the many challenges the authorities are now
facing is identifying the victims and searching for any
survivors. Days after the fires broke out, canine teams
have been able to search only three percent of the
disaster zone, according to the Maui County police
chief.
More federal emergency workers arrived on Saturday to
help search inside badly damaged homes and buildings,
Gov. Josh Green of Hawaii said. The ranks of active-
duty military personnel were expected to increase in
the coming days to help with the search and rescue
effort.
“The devastation was so complete,” the governor said,
that metals were twisted in unimaginable ways.
Federal officials have estimated it would take at least
$5.5 billion to rebuild the charred town of Lahaina.
Questions were also emerging about the government
response and whether officials gave residents enough
warning as winds whipped wildfires into a destructive
inferno.
In one glaring example, none of the 80 warning sirens
placed around Maui were activated by the island or
state’s emergency management agencies as the fire bore
down on the town of Lahaina, a spokesman for the Hawaii
Emergency Management Agency, Adam Weintraub, said on
Saturday. He stressed that the sirens alone would not
have been a signal to evacuate but to seek more
information.
Three days after the fire leveled Lahaina, a historic
seaside town in western Maui, with no official list of
fatalities, many family and friends were still
frantically seeking news of loved ones, their search
complicated by spotty cellphone and internet
connections. One family resorted to passing out photos;
others posted pleas online.
Here’s what else to know:
The Federal Emergency Management Agency said on
Saturday that more than 150 of its employees were on
the ground in Hawaii, including urban search-and-rescue
teams and a canine search team. More crews were on
their way, the agency said.
A report prepared for Maui County in 2020 warned that
the western side of the island, where Lahaini is, was
at a high risk for wild fire. The hazard mitigation
plan prepared for the county said that West Maui had
the highest annual probability for wildfires of all the
communities in the county, with a more than 90 percent
chance, of wildfires each year on average.
Questions are mounting about whether officials could
have warned residents with more notice or evacuated
them sooner. Governor Green told CNN that he had
authorized a review of the emergency response, and the
state’s attorney general, Anne Lopez, said she was
launching a “comprehensive review” of the decision-
making before the fires. Some local officials said the
speed of the blaze made it “nearly impossible” to have
alerted residents.
The local police chief in Maui said Thursday that 1,000
people were missing, but history suggests that that
number might not be a good estimate for the final tally
of victims. In 2018 the number of missing after the
deadly Camp fire in California swelled to 1,300 in the
early days before 85 people were ultimately confirmed
dead.
Viewed from above, the ashen and charred aftermath of
the burned areas is in striking contrast with some
lush, landscaped resorts that remain standing and the
turquoise ocean. Much of Lahaina was an old whaling
village built from wood, and a long line of abandoned,
burned cars in its streets showed how little time
residents had to escape as flames overtook the town.
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