Hawaii wildfire death toll grows to 93 as shocking new video shows residents being tossed
The death toll from the Hawaiian wildfires has climbed to 93 as new video emerges of residents being tossed around the ocean after diving in to flee flames.
Blazes on the island of Maui have now become the deadliest wildfires in modern US history, as authorities continue to work to identify the victims.
As the fires swept the island, new footage has also emerged of people who had jumped into the Pacific Ocean in an effort to escape the flames.
Those from the town of Lahaina are seen being thrown around the choppy waters as thick smoke and embers surround them.
Resident of the historic town Joan Hayashi told Fox 11 that those in the water had to wait for eight hours to be rescued.
Those from the town of Lahaina are seen being thrown around the choppy waters as thick smoke and embers surround them
A Mercy Worldwide volunteer makes damage assessment of charred apartment complex in the aftermath of a wildfire in Lahaina, western Maui, Hawaii on August 12, 2023
A resident uses a garden hose to put out hot spots after his home was destroyed by wildfire on August 12, 2023 in Kula
Hayashi said: ‘It sounded like a giant blow torch, we had to run in the ocean. We’re in the ocean probably like eight hours. Flames were hitting, things were falling from the palm tree.’
Federal emergency workers are now tasked with picking through the ashen moonscape left by the fire that razed the centuries-old town of Lahaina.
Teams have been marking homes with a bright orange X to record an initial search, and contacting HR when they discover human remains.
Maui Police Chief John Pelletier said that crews with cadaver dogs had covered just 3 percent of the search area, with the death toll expected to rise again.
Pelletier said identifying the dead is extremely challenging because ‘we pick up the remains and they fall apart’
Pelletier said: ‘When we find our family and our friends, the remains that we’re finding is through a fire that melted metal.’
So far, the remains of two people have been identified and Pelletier is urging those with missing family members to go to the family assistance center.
He said: ‘We need you to do the DNA test. We need to identify your loved ones.’
On Saturday, the Wall Street Journal reported that a report by fire researchers in 2014 warned the area was at an extremely high risk of burning.
Another report in 2020 is also said to have tied fires to winds from a passing hurricane, similar to the ones that turned the town of Lahaina to ash.
The 2014 report warned that Lahaina was among Maui’s most fire-prone areas due to its parched grasslands, winds and steep terrain.
Members of the US National Guard stand on a closed road in Lahaina, western Maui, Hawaii on August 12, 2023
Members of a search-and-rescue team walk along a street, Saturday, Aug. 12, 2023, in Lahaina
A handout photo made available by the Hawaii Department of Department of Land and Natural Resources shows an aerial view of the wildfire aftermath in Lahaina on Maui
Six active fires torched through Maui and Big Island, wiping out town of Lahaina
A plan was laid out to shield the area around Lahaina from fires, which included thinning vegetation, improving response capabilities and working with landowners.
On Saturday, Governor Josh Green toured the devastation on the historic Front Street of Lahaina.
He said: ‘It will certainly be the worst natural disaster that Hawaii ever faced.
‘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 healthcare, and then turn to rebuilding.’
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 is estimated at close to 6 billion US dollars, Green said it will take ‘an incredible amount of time’ to recover.
Hawaii Governor Josh Green is pictured addressing a press conference Saturday night, where he told reporters the Maui fire had killed 89 people, making it the deadliest wildfire in modern history – and the worst natural disaster that Hawaii has ever seen
Brook Cretton (L) holds a stack of dishes that he salvaged from the rubble of a home that was destroyed by wildfire on August 12
A resident, who did not giver her name, uses a garden hose to cool her feet after stepping hot embers at a neighbor’s house that was destroyed
Brook Cretton (R) and Spencer Kim (L) use a bucket of water to put out hot spots after a wildfire moved through the area on August 12
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 on Friday evening in Kaanapali, a coastal community north of Lahaina, but crews were able to extinguish it, authorities said.
Peg Alm spent Wednesday night sleeping in her truck after being forced from her home in Kuhei as another fire broke out.
‘I didn’t know about Lahaina until the next day because we made to evacuate’ she tells DailyMail.com.
After seeing those heartbreaking pictures of the devastation on the local news, Alm signed up to help with the relief effort after answering a call put out on social media.
‘I was tired of waking up and crying the whole morning,’ she says before wiping away more tears as she recounts her memories of the historic beachside town.
‘This is like the soul of the island has been ripped up,’ says the Michigan native, who has lived on Maui for 15 years.
For the past three days, a long-shuttered and derelict wharfside restaurant in the nearby Ma’alaea harbor has been a meeting place for a community still reeling from the deadly wildfires.
Volunteers sort out donations for those affected by a wildfire, at a parking lot in Lahaina
The announcement and increased death toll came as residents of Lahaina were allowed back into the town for the first time
Brook Cretton (L) and Spencer Kim (R) sift through the rubble of a home that was destroyed
Buzz’s Wharf, which closed its doors for good in 2014, is now a hub where local volunteers gather to send much-needed supplies to the displaced and desperate residents of the fire-ravaged town.
From the early hours of Saturday morning, they have been sorting through the donation and forming human chains to load up trucks bound for Lahaina.
As they do so, some of the Native Hawaiians break out into prayer, asking for the deliveries to be blessed, to the sound of the Pacific crashing on the nearby shore.
The cargo is made up entirely of donations from fellow islanders, stepping in whereaid agencies or the government have been too slow to do.
They include food, water, diapers, clothes and other medical supplies.
Peg, who runs paddleboard trips for tourists, was amongst the dozens of locals who have been showing up at Ma’alaea and other aid centers across the island since Thursday.
Charred remains of an apartment complex in the aftermath of a wildfire in Lahaina
Michael Lynn, a 41-year-old who moved to Maui from Oregon ten years ago to start a coconut harvesting business, had been on a camping trip in a remote eastern part of the island when the fire engulfed Lahaina.
‘We had no idea what was happening and then we switched on our phones and there were dozens of messages from our friends asking if we were ok,’ he explains.
‘The biggest challenge right now is getting the supplies to where they need to go,’
Lynn adds, admitting there has been some ‘frustration’ over the response from local authorities to the fire.
‘When we hit a certain spot, we try to figure out what they need and relay that information back to our volunteers here,’ he says. ‘We are delivering supplies but also hope.’
The newly released death toll passed that 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, passing 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.