Maui fire death toll rises to 93, deadliest in 105 years

At least 93 people have died from the wildfires in Maui, and that number could climb even higher as officials search the ruined historic town of Lahaina.

The search had hardly begun Saturday, with an estimated 3% of the burn area covered, according to Maui Police Chief John Pelletier.

“We’ve got an area that we have to contain that is at least 5 square miles, and it is full of our loved ones,” he said Saturday. “None of us really know the size” of the death toll.

With 93 deaths, the Lahaina Fire is now the U.S.’s deadliest wildfire in more than a century, surpassing the 2018 Camp Fire that killed 85 people and destroyed the town of Paradise, Calif. A 1918 fire in Minnesota killed more than 500 people.

The Lahaina Fire is also the deadliest natural disaster in Hawaii’s history as a state; a 1960 tsunami killed 61 people on the island of Hilo. Thirteen years before Hawaiian statehood, in 1946, a tsunami struck the Big Island and killed 150 people.

In response to that tsunami, the islands instituted an emergency alert system, which is tested every month. However, it never went off as the wildfires ripped across Maui.

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Identifying the deceased remained a major challenge for emergency workers on the island, as the blaze was strong enough that it melted metal, according to Chief Pelletier.

“We pick up the remains and they fall apart,” he said. The chief encouraged survivors to take DNA tests, saying, “We need to identify your loved ones.”

Three different wildfires were kicked up by dry conditions and the winds of Hurricane Dora as it passed Hawaii early last week. The Lahaina Fire was the deadliest, tearing through the centuries-old town and destroying 2,200 buildings.

“It outpaced anything firefighters could have done in the early hours,” U.S. Fire Administrator Lori Moore-Merrell said.

Nearly 4,500 people across Maui were left homeless by the fires. Residents in Lahaina and Kula were warned not to use the water due to possible chemical exposure.

“It’s not that people didn’t try to do anything,” Lahaina resident Riley Curran said. “The fire went from zero to 100.”

With News Wire Services