A wildfire that broke out this week in a picturesque town on the Hawaiian island of Maui killed at least 89 people, the government said Saturday, making it the deadliest U. S. wildfire in the past century.
Saturday’s new death toll came as federal rescuers with axes and dead dogs walked after the fire, marking the ruins of homes with a bright orange X for an initial search and HR when they found human remains.
Dogs worked in the rubble, and their occasional barks, used to alert their keepers of an imaginable dead frame, echoed through the hot, colorless landscape.
The inferno that swept through the century-old town of Lahaina on Maui’s west coast four days ago burned many homes and turned a lush tropical domain into a lunar landscape of ash. The state’s governor predicted more bodies would be found.
“It’s happening to pass up,” Gov. Josh Green said Saturday as he toured the devastation of historic Front Street. Our purpose now is to bring other people in combination when we can and provide them with housing and physical care, and then move on to rebuilding. “
At least 2200 buildings were damaged or destroyed in West Maui, Green said, 86 percent of which were residential. Across the island, he added, damages were estimated at around $6 billion. He said it would take “an incredible time” to recover.
At least two other fires have burned on Maui, with no deaths reported so far: in Kihei, south of Maui, and in the inland mountain communities known as Upcountry. A fourth exploded Friday night in Kaanapali, a coastal network in western Maui, north of Lahaina, but crews controlled to extinguish it, the government said.
Green said the Upcountry chimney affected 544 structures, 96 of which were residential.
Emergency officials on Maui favored sending other people displaced from their homes into space. Up to 4500 more people need shelter, county officials said on Facebook early Saturday, presenting figures from the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Pacific Disaster Center. .
A walks among the remains of a wildfire, Aug. 11, 2023, in Lahaina, Hawaii. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)
Those who escaped recounted their blessings, grateful to be alive as they mourned those who did not survive.
Retired fire Capt. Geoff Bogar and his 35-year-old friend, Franklin Trejos, first stayed behind to help others in Lahaina and save Bogar’s home. But as the flames got closer and closer Tuesday afternoon, they knew they had to get out. They all escaped in their own cars. When Bogar didn’t need to start, he walked out a window to get out, then crawled across the floor until a police patrol discovered him and took him to the hospital.
Trejos was not so lucky. When Bogar returned the next day, he discovered the bones of his 68-year-old friend in the back seat of his car, a lie about the remains of Bogar’s beloved 3-year-old golden retriever, Sam, whom he had tried to kill. protect.
Trejos, from Costa Rica, had lived for years with Bogar and his wife, Shannon Weber-Bogar, helping her with her seizures when her husband couldn’t. He filled their lives with love and laughter.
“God took an intelligent man,” Weber-Bogar said.
Bill Wyland, who lives on the island of Oahu but owns an art gallery on Lahaina’s historic Front Street, fled on his Harley Davidson, whipping the motorcycle on empty sidewalks Tuesday onto congested roads as embers burned his hair on the back of his neck.
Riding in winds he estimated at at least 70 miles per hour (112 kilometers per hour), he passed a man on a bicycle pedaling for his life.
“It’s what you’d see in an unknown dimension, a horror movie or something,” Wyland said.
The recently released death toll surpassed the death toll from the 2018 Northern California Camp Fire that killed another 85 people and destroyed the town of Paradise. number of rural communities, destroying thousands of homes and killing hundreds.
The wildfires are the state’s deadliest herbal crisis in decades, surpassing the 1960 tsunami that killed another 61 people. An even deadlier tsunami in 1946, which killed more than 150 people on the Big Island, prompted the progression of a territory-wide emergency warning. Formula with sirens tested monthly.
Hawaii’s emergency management records do not imply that warning sirens sounded before the fire hit the city. Authorities have sent alerts to cellphones, televisions and radio stations, but widespread power and cellphone outages may have limited their reach.
Fueled by a dry summer and strong winds from a passing hurricane, wildfires on Maui spread the dry brush that covered the island.
The worst fire tore through Lahaina on Tuesday, destroying nearly every building in the city of 13,000, leaving a grid of gray debris wedged between the blue ocean and green hillsides.
Front Street, Maui’s historic and economic center, was nearly deserted Saturday morning. The damage to the harbor, where he said his ship had caught fire and sank.
Maui water officials warned citizens of Lahaina and Kula not to drink tap water, which can become infected even after boiling, and to only take brief, warm showers in well-ventilated rooms to avoid imaginable exposure to chemical fumes.
Drivers in West Maui, Hawaii, wait in traffic as police open a barricade, allowing citizens to search their homes for the first time after a devastating wildfire destroyed most of the city of Lahaina on Aug. 11, 2023. (AP Photo/Daily Haven)
The danger of Maui was well known. Maui County’s updated threat mitigation plan in 2020 knew that Lahaina and other West Maui communities had common wildfires and several endangered buildings. The report also noted that West Maui had the highest rate of families without vehicles on the island and the highest rate of non-English speakers.
“This would possibly restrict the population’s ability to receive, perceive and trigger dangerous events,” the plan says.
Maui’s firefighting efforts may have been hampered by the limited number of workers and equipment.
Bobby Lee, president of the Hawaii Firefighters Association, said there are as many as 65 county firefighters operating at any given time, which are for 3 islands: Maui, Molokai and Lanai.
Green said officials would review policies and procedures to ensure safety.
“People have asked why we are in what is happening and that’s because the world has changed. A typhoon can now be a hurricane of fire or a hurricane of fire,” he said. “That’s what we’ve been through, that’s why we’re in those policies, to see how we can more productively protect our people. “
Riley Curran said he fled his Front Street home after nearby construction to get a better view. He doubts county officials have done more, given the speed of the flames.
“It’s not that other people haven’t tried to do anything,” Curran said. “The chimney went from 0 to 100. “
Curran said he’s noticed horrible wildfires growing in California.
But, he added, “I had never realized that an entire village ate in 4 hours. “
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Kelleher returns from Honolulu and Dupuy, New York. Associated Press writers Rebecca Boone in Boise, Idaho; Andrew Selsky in Bend, Oregon; Bobby Caina Calván in New York; Audrey McAvoy in Wailuku, Hawaii; Ty O’Neil in Lahaina, Hawaii; and Lisa J. Adams Wagner in Evans, Georgia, contributed to this report.
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