The death toll on Maui rose to 67 on Friday as officials confirmed 12 more deaths from a massive wildfire that turned large swathes of a century-old town into a hellscape of ash debris.
Maui County officials said in an online statement that firefighters continued to battle the blaze, which was not yet fully contained. Meanwhile, Lahaina residents were allowed to return home for the first time to assess the damage.
Associated Press reporters witnessed the devastation, with nearly every building crushed to rubble on Front Street, the heart of Maui’s community and the island’s economic center.
Wildfires have ravaged much of the Hawaiian island of Maui and killed dozens of people. Andrew Chang highlights chilling stories from people who lived through it.
The roosters known to roam the streets of Hawaii meandered through the ashes of what was left, including a strange tangle of the charred remains of dozens of cars that didn’t make it out of the inferno.
Charred cars crushed by downed telephone poles. Eight charred elevators stand as testaments to the burned-out apartment buildings they once served. Pools full of charcoal colored water. Children’s trampolines and scooters destroyed by the extreme heat.
“It hit so fast, it was unbelievable,” Lahaina resident Kyle Scharnhorst said as he surveyed the damage at his apartment complex Friday 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 people on the Big Island, prompted the development of a territory-wide emergency system that includes warning sirens, which sound monthly to check preparedness.
“There was no warning”
But many survivors said in interviews that they heard no sirens or received a warning that gave them enough time to prepare and only realized they were in danger when they saw flames or heard explosions nearby.
“There was no warning. There was absolutely none. Nobody came. We didn’t see a fire truck or anybody,” said Lynn Robinson, who lost her home in the fire.
Phena Davis, who lost everything in the Maui wildfires, says she “can’t imagine” her family will return to their community in Lahaina, even if they want to.
Hawaii emergency management records show no indication that warning sirens sounded before people had to run for their lives. Instead, officials sent alerts to cellphones, televisions and radio stations, but widespread power and cell outages may have limited their reach.
Hawaii Governor Josh Green warned that the death toll would likely rise as search and rescue operations continued. He also said Lahaina residents could return Friday to check on their property and that people will also be able to go out to get water and access other services.
People could enter West Maui starting at noon local time, and authorities imposed a curfew from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. Saturday.
The wildfire is already projected to be the second costliest disaster in Hawaii’s history, behind only Hurricane Iniki in 1992, according to calculations by Karen Clark & Company, a leading disaster and risk modeling firm. .
“Recovery is going to be extraordinarily difficult, but we want people to go home and do everything they can to assess safely, because it’s pretty dangerous,” Green told Hawaii News Now.
Phena Davis is among those who lost their homes in Lahaina to the wildfires. Speaking to the CBC News Network Friday from Kihei, south of Lahaina, he said it wasn’t until Thursday afternoon that his entire family was accounted for and evacuated to a safe area.
“We see these hillside fires all the time, so it never occurred to me that it would go in the direction it did,” Davis said.
As the fire moved north through Lahaina, Davis didn’t have time to pack clothes when he left his home. He only took his laptop and some important papers.
Joe Duenat, of the Sacramento, California area, was staying with his family on the ninth floor of a hotel in Kaanapali, north of Lahaina, when the fire approached.
“We basically had the wildfire over the hill where Lahaina is and I didn’t sleep at all that night,” he told CBC’s Makda Ghebreslassie after he and his family arrived at the Honolulu airport.
Returning after the fire, Summer and Gilles Gerling tried to save their family’s memories from the ashes of their home. But all they found was the piggy bank Summer’s father gave her as a child, her daughter’s jade bracelet, and the watches they gave each other for their wedding. Their wedding rings were gone.
They described their fear as the strong wind blew and the smoke and flames approached. But they said they were glad they and their two children made it out alive.
“It is what it is,” Gilles said. “Safety was the main concern. These are all material things.”
The blaze is the deadliest wildfire in the United States since the 2018 California wildfire that killed at least 85 people and razed the town of Paradise. Cadaver-sniffing dogs were brought in Friday to help search for the remains of people killed by the inferno, Maui County Mayor Richard Bissen Jr. said.
Forest fires were a known risk
Lahaina’s wildfire risk was 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 second highest rate of households without a vehicle and the highest rate of non-English speakers.
“This can limit the population’s ability to receive, understand and take timely action during hazard events,” the plan notes.
Maui’s firefighting efforts also may have been hampered by short staffing, said Bobby Lee, president of the Hawaii Firefighters Association.
There are as many as 65 firefighters working in Maui County at any given time, he said, and they are responsible for fighting fires on three islands: Maui, Molokai and Lanai.
“Trying to fight a blowtorch”
Those crews have about 13 fire engines and two ladder trucks, but the department has no all-terrain vehicles, he said. This means fire crews cannot attack brush fires thoroughly before they reach roads or populated areas.
Lana Vierra longs to return to Lahaina even though she knows the home where she raised five children is no longer there.
“To really stand there in their scorched earth and spin the wheels on how to move forward, I think will give families peace,” he said. When he ran away on Tuesday, he thought it would be temporary.
He spent Friday morning filling out FEMA assistance forms at a relative’s house in Haiku. He really wants to see Lahaina, but he doesn’t know how he’ll feel once he’s there.
She’s thinking about the sheds in the back that held family mementos: “my kids’ yearbooks and all that kind of stuff. Their baby pictures,” she said. “That’s what hurts a mother the most.”
A spokesperson for Global Affairs Canada said the department is “not aware of any Canadians who have been killed or injured” on Maui, but continues to monitor the situation.
The federal government is asking Canadians in need of emergency assistance in Hawaii to call Global Affairs Canada’s Emergency Response and Monitoring Center at 613-996-8885 (collect calls accepted when available), via message text to +1 613-686-3658, via Telegram to Canada Emergency Abroad, via WhatsApp to +1 613-909-8881 or via Signal to +1-613-909-8087. They can also send an email to sos@international.gc.ca.
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