Maui death toll increases to 93 after deadliest wildfire in US history

Just two of the 93 people confirmed dead have been identified, with officials warning the death toll will continue to rise as efforts to count the losses are only just beginning. ITV News Correspondent Peter Smith reports live from Maui

At least 93 people have died in devastating wildfires that razed a historic Maui town, officials confirmed early on Sunday, making it the most deadly wildfire in US history.

Maui Police Chief John Pelletier said the death toll is likely to grow and “none of us really know the size of it yet”, as efforts to find and identify the dead were still in their early stages.

Crews with cadaver dogs have covered only 3% of the search area, he said, adding: “We’ve got an area that we have to contain that is at least five square miles and it is full of our loved ones."

He spoke as emergency workers picked through the ashen moonscape left by the fire that razed the centuries-old town of Lahaina. Teams marked the ruins of homes with a bright orange X to record an initial search, and HR when they found human remains.

Dogs worked through the rubble, and their occasional bark - used to alert their handlers to a possible corpse - echoed over the hot and colourless landscape.

Two people have been identified so far, said the police chief, adding that identifying the dead is extremely challenging because “we pick up the remains and they fall apart".

"When we find our family and our friends, the remains that we’re finding is through a fire that melted metal," he added.

“It will certainly be the worst natural disaster that Hawaii ever faced,” Governor Josh Green said on Saturday, as he toured the devastation on historic Front Street.

"We can only wait and support those who are living. Our focus now is to reunite people when we can and get them housing and get them health care, and then turn to rebuilding," he added.

At least 2,200 buildings were damaged or destroyed in West Maui, Mr Green said, of which 86% were residential. Across the island, he added, damage was estimated at close to $6 billion (£4,727,000).

He said it would take “an incredible amount of time” to recover."

At least two other fires have been burning on Maui, with no fatalities reported thus far: in south Maui’s Kihei area and in the mountainous, inland communities known as Upcountry.

A fourth broke out Friday evening in Kaanapali, a coastal community north of Lahaina, but crews were able to extinguish it, authorities said.

Mr Green said the Upcountry fire had affected 544 structures, of which 96% were residential.

Emergency managers in Maui were searching for places to house people displaced from their homes.

Mr Green encouraged those with missing family members to go to the family assistance center.

“We need you to do the DNA test. We need to identify your loved ones,” Mr Pelletier said.

Those who escaped counted their blessings, thankful to be alive as they mourned those who didn't make it. Retired fire captain Geoff Bogar and his friend of 35 years, Franklin Trejos, initially stayed behind to help others in Lahaina and save Mr Bogar's house.

But as the flames moved closer and closer on Tuesday afternoon, they knew they had to get out. Each escaped to his own car.

When Mr Bogar's wouldn't start, he broke through a window to get out, then crawled on the ground until a police patrol found him and brought him to a hospital.

ITV News correspondent Peter Smith reports live from the devastated community of Kula, on the island of Maui

Mr Trejos wasn't as lucky. When Mr Bogar returned the next day, he found the bones of his 68-year-old friend in the back seat of his car, lying on top of the remains of the Bogars' beloved three-year-old golden retriever Sam, whom he had tried to protect.

Mr Trejos, a native of Costa Rica, had lived for years with Mr 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 a really good man,” Mrs Weber-Bogar said.

About 46,000 residents and visitors have flown out of Kahului Airport in West Maui since the devastation in Lahaina became clear Wednesday, according to the Hawaii Tourism Authority.

"In the weeks ahead, the collective resources and attention of the federal, state and county government, the West Maui community, and the travel industry must be focused on the recovery of residents who were forced to evacuate their homes and businesses," the agency said in a statement late Saturday.

Tourists are encouraged to visit Hawaii's other islands.

Mr Green said 500 hotels rooms will be made available for locals who have been displaced.

An additional 500 hotel rooms will be set aside for workers from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

The state wants to work with Airbnb to make sure that rental homes can be made available for locals. The newly released death toll surpassed the toll of the 2018 Camp Fire in northern California, which left 85 dead and destroyed the town of Paradise.

A century earlier, the 1918 Cloquet Fire broke out in drought-stricken northern Minnesota and raced through a number of rural communities, destroying thousands of homes and killing hundreds. 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 development of a territory-wide emergency alert system with sirens that are tested monthly.

Hawaii emergency management records do not indicate the warning sirens sounded before fire hit the town.

Officials sent alerts to mobile phones, televisions and radio stations, but widespread power and cellular outages may have limited their reach.

Fuelled by a dry summer and strong winds from a passing hurricane, the wildfires on Maui raced through parched brush covering the island.

“It outpaced anything firefighters could have done in the early hours,” US Fire Administrator Lori Moore-Merrell said, adding that it moved horizontally, structure to structure and “incredibly fast.”

“It was a low-to-the-ground fire. It was grass-fed by all evidence that we could observe today,” she said.

The most serious blaze swept into Lahaina on Tuesday and destroyed nearly every building in the town of 13,000, leaving a grid of gray rubble wedged between the blue ocean and lush green slopes.

Maui water officials warned Lahaina and Kula residents not to drink running water, which may be contaminated even after boiling, and to only take short, lukewarm showers in well-ventilated rooms to avoid possible chemical vapor exposure.

Maui’s firefighting efforts may have been hampered by limited staff and equipment.

Bobby Lee, president of the Hawaii Firefighters Association, said there are a maximum of 65 county firefighters working at any given time, who are responsible for three islands: Maui, Molokai and Lanai.

Mr Green said officials will review policies and procedures to improve safety.

“People have asked why we are reviewing what’s going on and it’s because the world has changed.

"A storm now can be a hurricane-fire or a fire-hurricane,” he said.

“That’s what we experienced, that’s why we’re looking into these policies, to find out how we can best protect our people.”

Lahaina resident Riley Curran said he doubted that county officials could have done more, given the speed of the onrushing flames.

He fled his Front Street home after seeing the oncoming fire from the roof of a neighbouring building. “It’s not that people didn’t try to do anything," Mr Curran said.

“The fire went from zero to 100.”

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