Tag: Hawaii wildfires

The number of people on the official list of those missing from the Maui wildfire stood at 385 on Friday, nearly unchanged from a week earlier.

In a news release, the Maui Police Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation said 245 people on the list of 388 made public the previous week were located and removed. However, a nearly equal number of new names were added.

The updated total was a startling departure from what had been expected — a day earlier Gov. Josh Green said he believed the number would fall below 100.

“We think the number has dropped down into the double digits, so thank God,” Green said in a video posted to social media.

After Maui police released the updated list, the governor said the numbers of fatalities and missing are often in flux in mass casualty events until investigations are completed.

“Exact numbers are going to take time, perhaps a long time, to become finalized,” Green said in a statement provided through a spokesperson.

He said there are less than 50 “active missing person cases.” He didn’t elaborate but indicated those are the people for whom more information was provided than the minimum to be on the missing list compiled by the FBI. It only requires a first and last name provided by a person with a verified contact number.

Authorities have said at least 115 people died in the blaze that swept through Lahaina, the deadliest wildfire in the U.S. in more than a century. So far, the names of 50 people have been publicly released and five others have been identified but their identities withheld because next of kin haven’t been reached. The rest have yet to be identified.

The flames turned the picturesque seaside town into rubble in a few short hours on Aug. 8. Wind gusts topping 60 mph ripped through the town, causing the flames to spread exceptionally quickly.

Lahaina has deep significance in Hawaiian history as the one-time capital of former Hawaiian kingdom and as the home to high-ranking chiefs for centuries. In recent decades, the town became popular with tourists, who ate at its oceanfront restaurants and marveled at a majestic 150-year-old banyan tree.

Half the town’s 12,000 residents are now living in hotels and short-term vacation rentals. The Environmental Protection Agency is leading an effort to clean hazardous waste left in a burn zone stretching across some 5 square miles.

Reconstruction is expected to take years and cost billions.

Initially more than 1,000 people were believed unaccounted for based on family, friends or acquaintances reporting them as missing. Officials narrowed that list down to 388 names who were credibly considered missing and released the names to the public last week.

New names on Friday’s updated list were added from the Red Cross, shelters and interested parties who contacted the FBI, Maui Police Chief John Pelletier said. He urged family members of the missing to submit their genetic data to help identify their relatives.

“If you have a loved one that you know is missing and you are a family member, it’s imperative that you get a DNA sample,” Pelletier said in a video posted to Instagram.

The cause of the fire hasn’t been determined, but it’s possible powerlines from downed utility poles ignited the blaze. Maui County has sued Hawaiian Electric, the electrical utility for the island.

The utility acknowledged its power lines started a wildfire early on Aug. 8 but faulted county firefighters for declaring the blaze contained and leaving the scene, only to have a second wildfire break out nearby.

Local government officials have faced significant criticism for their response both before, during and after the Lahaina fire, one of several which sparked on Maui on Aug. 8.

Maui County Mayor Richard Bissen has been vague as to his actions as the Lahaina fire was spreading. In an interview Bissen gave to local station KITV-TV, just after 6 p.m. on Aug. 8, he said, “I’m happy to report the road is open to and from Lahaina.”

However, Bissen was seemingly unaware that, at that point, much of downtown Lahaina was already ablaze. And while it was Bissen’s job to ask the state for emergency backup, the mayor told reporters this week he did not call the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency.

“I can’t speak to what — or whose responsibility it was to communicate directly,” Bissen told CBS News this week. “I can’t say who was responsible for communicating with General Hara.”

Major General Kenneth Hara, the director of the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency, said in a recent interview with Hawaii News Now that he was initially unaware of crucial details about the fire.

“I thought everyone had gotten out safely,” he said. “It wasn’t until probably the next day I started hearing about fatalities.”

Amid calls for his resignation, Bissen released a video statement Thursday in which he said:

“I want to be clear and repeat, that I have been present in our emergency operations center, since Aug. 7,” adding he did “become aware of fatalities” until Aug. 9.

“My first thoughts are, we should really get to all of the facts, whatever they may be, good or bad, that is a deeply personal discussion for any mayor and his or her constituents to have,” Green told CBS News in an interview Friday when asked whether Bissen should resign.

On Aug. 17, a little over a week after the fire broke out, Herman Andaya resigned from his post as chief of the Maui Emergency Management Agency, just one day after he publicly defended his controversial decision not to activate the island’s warning sirens when the Lahaina fire was spreading.

Andaya argued that sounding the sirens could have created confusion by sending Lahaina residents into the path of the blaze because they may have thought the sirens were signaling a tsunami, not a wildfire.

“The public is trained to seek higher ground in the event that the sirens are sounded,” Andaya told reporters on Aug. 16.

“Had we sounded the sirens that night, we were afraid that people would have gone mauka (mountainside), and if that was the case, they would have gone into the fire,” he added.

Andaya has since been replaced by Darryl Oliveira, a former Hawaii Fire Department chief who also served as the head of the Hawaii County Civil Defense Agency.

Maui County sued Hawaiian Electric Company on Thursday over the fires that devastated Lahaina, saying the utility negligently failed to shut off power despite exceptionally high winds and dry conditions.

Witness accounts and video indicated that sparks from power lines ignited fires as utility poles snapped in the winds, which were driven by a passing hurricane. The Aug. 8 fires have killed at least 115 people, making them the deadliest in the U.S. in more than a century. Hundreds more remain missing.

Hawaii Electric said in a statement it is “very disappointed that Maui County chose this litigious path while the investigation is still unfolding.”

The FBI and Maui County police are still trying to determine how many people remain unaccounted for in the fires. The FBI said Tuesday there were 1,000 to 1,100 names on a tentative, unconfirmed list.

Maui County officials said Thursday that 46 of the victims have so far been identified. They include 7-year-old Tony Takafua, the first confirmed child victim of the fires.

In a news release announcing the lawsuit, Maui County officials said the wildfires destroyed more than 2,200 structures and caused at least $5.5 billion in damage.

The lawsuit said the destruction could have been avoided and that the utility had a duty “to properly maintain and repair the electric transmission lines, and other equipment including utility poles associated with their transmission of electricity, and to keep vegetation properly trimmed and maintained so as to prevent contact with overhead power lines and other electric equipment.”

The utility knew that high winds “would topple power poles, knock down power lines, and ignite vegetation,” the lawsuit said. “Defendants also knew that if their overhead electrical equipment ignited a fire, it would spread at a critically rapid rate.”

A drought in the region had left plants, including invasive grasses, dangerously dry. As Hurricane Dora passed roughly 500 miles south of Hawaii, strong winds toppled at least 30 power poles in West Maui. Video shot by a Lahaina resident shows a downed power line setting dry grasses alight. Firefighters initially contained that fire, but then left to attend to other calls, and residents said the fire later reignited and raced toward downtown Lahaina.

With downed power lines, police or utility crews blocking some roads, traffic ground to a standstill along Lahaina’s Front Street. A number of residents jumped into the water off Maui as they tried to escape the flaming debris and overheated black smoke enveloping downtown.

Dozens of searchers in snorkel gear this week have been combing a 4-mile stretch of water for signs of anyone who might have perished. Crews are also painstakingly searching for remains among the ashes of destroyed businesses and multistory residential buildings.

“Our primary focus in the wake of this unimaginable tragedy has been to do everything we can to support not just the people of Maui, but also Maui County,” Hawaiian Electric’s statement said.

Hawaiian Electric is a for-profit, investor-owned, publicly traded utility that serves 95% of Hawaii’s electric customers. It is also facing several lawsuits from Lahaina residents as well as one from some of its own investors, who accused it of fraud in a federal lawsuit Thursday, saying it failed to disclose that its wildfire prevention and safety measures were inadequate.

Maui County’s lawsuit notes other utilities, such as Southern California Edison Company, Pacific Gas & Electric, and San Diego Gas & Electric, have procedures for shutting off power during bad windstorms and said the “severe and catastrophic losses … could have easily been prevented” if Hawaiian Electric had a similar shutoff plan.

The county said it is seeking compensation for damage to public property and resources in Lahaina as well as nearby Kula.

Other utilities have been found liable for devastating fires recently.

In June, a jury in Oregon found the electric utility PacifiCorp responsible for causing devastating fires during Labor Day weekend in 2020, ordering the company to pay tens of millions of dollars to 17 homeowners who sued and finding it liable for broader damages that could push the total award into the billions.

Pacific Gas & Electric declared bankruptcy and pleaded guilty to 84 counts of manslaughter after its neglected equipment caused a fire in the Sierra Nevada foothills in 2018 that killed 85 people, destroyed nearly 19,000 homes, businesses and other buildings, and virtually razed the town of Paradise, California.

Exactly two weeks after a wildfire ripped through the historic Maui city of Lahaina, officials on Tuesday said that the number of people unaccounted for in the blaze continues to fluctuate due to uncertain and incomplete data. At least 115 people have been killed in the fire, the deadliest U.S. wildfire in more than a century.

In a news briefing Tuesday afternoon, Steven Merrill, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Honolulu division, said that the number of people “reported unaccounted for” is between 1,000 and 1,100.

“Whether it be someone who just gave a first name, ‘Chris is missing,’ or someone that gave very extensive and specific information,” Merrill clarified.

This latest estimate comes one day after Maui County Mayor Richard Bissen said that the number of missing was believed to be at around 850.

“We don’t want to leave any stone unturned, so we’re considering everybody on that list until we can prove that they’re not on that list,” Merrill said, emphasizing the number will change as new information continues to come in.

“There may be a shelter out there, for example, a hotel out there, that hasn’t reported people,” he said.

Officials were unable to confirm how many of the missing are children. Merrill disclosed that no one on their missing persons lists has a child’s birthdate. 

“That doesn’t mean…there are not minor victims,” Merrill said. “…On all of our lists, we don’t have any names, currently, that show a date of birth of someone who is a child,” Merrill said. 

He also noted that about 1,400 of the 2,500 people who were initially reported missing have been so far found safe. 

For days, hundreds of search and rescue crews and dozens of cadaver dogs have been canvassing the burn area for human remains. The FBI has evidence collection personnel, forensic science experts and cell phone analysts on the ground in Maui assisting in the identification process, Merrill said. 

Familial DNA is being used to help identify victims. At least 104 DNA reference samples have been collected so far from people on the island in an effort to “construct family trees, or pedigrees,” Julie French, senior vice president for the DNA analysis company ANDE, told reporters.

“Nearly three-quarters of the remains that have been tested thus far have generated searchable DNA results,” French said.

Maui Prosecuting Attorney Andy Martin said DNA analysis was being solely conducted by ANDE, not the FBI or any other local government agencies, and that the samples collected were only being used for the purpose of identifying victims.

As of Tuesday evening, 43 people have been identified, county officials said. Of those, eight names have been publicly released, ranging in age from 59 to 74. 

Meanwhile, there were fresh questions over how aware Maui County officials were of the conditions on the ground Aug. 8 as the Lahaina fire was breaking out. This because of an interview Mayor Richard Bissen gave to local station KITV-TV, just after 6 p.m. on Aug. 8.

“I’m happy to report the road is open to and from Lahaina,” Bissen told KITV at the time.

However, Bissen was seemingly unaware that, at that point, much of downtown Lahaina was already ablaze, with thousands of people trying to flee the flames which destroyed about 80% of the city.  

When asked about the timeframe of that specific interview Tuesday, Bissen responded that “we had lots of information coming in, we had lots of communication that was broken down.”

As the fire situation was unfolding, Bissen said, he was being briefed through the emergency operations center, with most of that information coming from the fire department.

The mayor disclosed that he “wasn’t aware…until later” that Maui County police officers had allegedly gone door-to-door in Lahaina at the time of the fire “making personal pleas…knocking on doors” and using speakers to ask people to evacuate.

“I can’t tell you what contributed to what,” Bissen said.

Last week, the chief of the Maui Emergency Management Agency resigned after being roundly criticized for not activating the island’s warning sirens as the Lahaina fire was spreading.

One day before quitting, when asked by reporters if he regretted not activating the sirens, Herman Andaya responded, “I do not.”

The cause of the wildfires remains under investigation. Hawaii Attorney General Anne Lopez also announced last week that she will bring in a “third-party private organization” to assess the response of local government agencies to the fires. 

The Lahaina fire, one of four wildfires which broke out Aug. 8 on the island, burned about 3.39 square miles. It destroyed at least 2,200 structures, according to estimates, about 86% of which were residential. It was 90% contained as of Monday. 

The four fires have burned a combined estimate of 10 square miles. On Monday, President Biden and First Lady Jill Biden traveled to Maui to tour the disaster zone. 

— Jonathan Vigliotti and Caitlin O’Kane contributed to this report.