The death toll made the inferno, which erupted on Tuesday, Hawaii’s worst natural disaster in history, surpassing a 1961 tsunami that killed 61 people a year after Hawaii became a US state.
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Authorities began allowing residents back into west Maui on Friday, though the fire zone in Lahaina remained barricaded. Officials warned there could be toxic fumes from smouldering areas and said search operations were continuing.
“It’s going to be sad to get down there,” said Za Dacruz, 33, as he waited on Friday in a traffic jam to try to return to Lahaina. “We’re just looking for everyone to be alive, to be safe – that’s all we’re trying to do. And the rest? We’ll go from there.”
Hundreds of people were still missing, though a precise count was not clear.
The latest death toll exceeded the 85 people who perished in a 2018 fire in the town of Paradise, California, and was the highest toll from a wildfire since 1918, when the Cloquet fire in Minnesota and Wisconsin claimed 453 lives.
At a family assistance centre in Kahului, June Lacuesta said he was trying to locate nine relatives who had not been heard from since Tuesday.
“When I see Lahaina town itself, I cannot describe the feelings I get,” said Lacuesta, who was headed to a church shelter next to continue his search.
Starting this weekend 500 hotels rooms will be made available for displaced locals, and another 500 will be set aside for FEMA personnel, according to the governor.
The state wants to work with Airbnb to ensure rental homes are available for locals, and Green hopes the company can provide three- to nine-month rentals.
Flyovers by the Civil Air Patrol found 1692 structures destroyed, almost all of them residential. Officials earlier had said 2719 structures were exposed to the fire, with more than 80 per cent of them damaged or destroyed.
The disaster began just after midnight on Tuesday when a brush fire was reported in the town of Kula, roughly 56 kilometres from Lahaina.
About five hours later, power was knocked out in Lahaina. In updates posted on Facebook that morning, Maui County said a 1.2-hectare brush fire cropped up in Lahaina about 6.30am but had been contained by 10am.
Subsequent updates were focused on the Kula fire, which had burned hundreds of acres and forced some local evacuations. But about 3.30pm, according to the county’s updates, the Lahaina fire flared up.
Some residents began evacuating while people, including hotel guests, on the town’s west side were instructed to shelter in place. In the ensuing hours, the county posted a series of evacuation orders on Facebook, though it was not clear whether residents were receiving them as people frantically fled the fast-advancing flames.
Some witnesses said they had little warning, describing their terror as the blaze destroyed the town around them in what seemed to be a matter of minutes.
Reuters, AP
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