President Joe Biden touched down in Kahului on the island of Maui Monday where he greeted local politicians with hugs, handshakes and condolences in light of the island’s devastating wildfires. 

He and First Lady Jill paused their summer vacation at Lake Tahoe in Nevada on Monday to visit Hawaii.

The president appeared more somber in tone than when he told a reporter he had ‘no comment’ on the inferno’s devastation while relaxing at his Delaware beach house last Sunday.

Biden was met with some protests from local residents who held signs with messages like ‘he’s too late,’ ‘he should’ve been here much earlier,’ and ‘actions speak louder than words.’ 

The death toll in Maui has topped 114 – already making the inferno one of the nation’s deadliest in history – and an estimated 1,000 people are still unaccounted for. Officials are still analyzing the factors that contributed to the massive inferno, including problems with its electrical grid.

Biden will visit with those who lost homes and loved ones during the disaster and be briefed by public officials. The White house said he has continued to receive briefings over the weekend, after Biden issued a series of public statements on the disaster following his early stumbles.

The president left behind a more tranquil setting – he is renting the home of billionaire former presidential candidate and climate activist Tom Steyer on the eastern side of Lake Tahoe.

He has been accompanied on that vacation by his son Hunter, who has been dealing with the collapse of his plea deal on tax charges, and whose probe is now being overseen by U.S. attorney David Weiss in the role of special prosecutor. 

After taking criticism for his ‘no comment’ while at the beach, Biden has been making repeated references to the tragedy. 

He spoke at Camp David about financial contributions by Japan and South Korea announced at the summit, then boarded Marine One to make his way to Nevada.

‘I want to start by expressing my appreciation for the contribution that your countries have made for relief following the devastating wildfires in Hawaii. I want to thank you both on behalf of the American people,’ he said. Biden also said FEMA was preparing for the arrival of Hurricane Hilary in Southern California.

On Thursday he promised to offer assistance to Maui for ‘as long as it takes’  during a recorded message that aired on ABC’s ‘Good Morning America.’

‘The entire nation is with you as you recover, rebuild and grieve,’ he said. 

The wildfire that broke out August 8 in the town of Lahaina is now the deadliest in more than a century, and the fifth-deadliest on record for the U.S. 

‘We’ll be with you for as long as it takes, I promise you,’ the president added. He noted the federal government has already taken action to send hundreds of emergency personnel and thousands of meals and supplies to the historic tourist town ravaged by flames. 

Before Biden announced his visit, Republicans compared his lack of a visit to East Palestine, Ohio – where a train derailed and spilled toxic chemicals, displacing 100s. Biden had promised to visit the Ohio town but never did. 

Former President Donald Trump and other Republicans tore into him. Trump said he was refusing ‘to help or comment on the tragedy’ and called the moment ‘horrible and unacceptable.’

Biden first issued his ‘no comment’ while while staying at the beach near his Delaware home.

Then while breezing by reporters he made a terse comment, saying he was ‘looking at it.’ 

Back at the White House, a reporter asked Biden at the White House: ‘Can you tell us about your Hawaii trip?’ 

‘No, not now,’ Biden said, before staff eventually announced details.

It call came during a time when Biden might have preferred some distance form the press, following the appointment of the special counsel for his son. 

Biden and the first lady are traveling to Maui on Monday to comfort survivors of the devastating wildfires that ripped through the western part of the Hawaiian island earlier this month, as his administration responds to the devastation whose full scope is still unknown.

The Bidens are taking a detour from their weeklong vacation in the Lake Tahoe area for the day trip to Lahaina, a historic town of 13,000 people that was virtually destroyed by the flames. While there, the first couple will meet with first responders and be briefed by state and local officials about the ongoing response.

They will also view the damaged town, both from helicopters and on the ground, and the Democratic president will deliver remarks paying tribute to the victims of the wildfires, which have killed more than 100 people since they began on Aug. 8.

The president will also tap Bob Fenton, a regional leader at the Federal Emergency Management Agency, as chief federal response coordinator for the Maui wildfires, ensuring that someone from his administration will be responsible for long-term recovery efforts. It will take years to rebuild Lahaina, where just about every building was obliterated.

‘I know how profoundly loss can impact a family and a community and I know nothing can replace the loss of life,’ Biden said in a statement ahead of the trip. ‘I will do everything in my power to help Maui recover and rebuild from this tragedy. And throughout our efforts, we are focused on respecting sacred lands, cultures, and traditions.’

Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, said that as of Sunday about 85% of the affected area had been searched and nearly 2,000 people remained without power and 10,000 were without telecom connectivity. Water in parts of west Maui is not safe to drink.

While immediate aid such as water, food and blankets has been readily distributed to residents, Schatz said that cellphones, identification and other documents that people would need to help them enroll in longer-term aid programs were burned in the fires, adding more challenges to the application process.

More than 1,000 federal officials remain on the ground in Hawaii to respond to the wildfires, according to the White House. The administration has doled out more than $8 million in aid to affected families.

Schatz, who will be with Biden as the president travels to his home state on Monday, stressed that officials were ‘still responding to the disaster’ and ‘We are not yet in a recovery phase.’

‘As bad as this looks, it´s actually worse,’ he said in a phone interview on Sunday. ‘What you can´t see is the damage to utility infrastructure. What you can´t see is the thousands of kids who are trying to figure out how to go to school this fall. What you can´t see is the first responders who went into the flames without regard for their own safety and had their own homes burned down.’

While vacationing in Lake Tahoe, Biden has been on the phone regularly with officials to get briefed on updates to the wildfire response, the White House said.

Joe Biden on Tuesday appeared to forget the name Maui, referring to the island in a speech in Milwaukee as ‘the one where you see on television all the time.’

As the death toll rose to 106, and as rescuers continued to comb the rubble in Lahaina, Hawaii, the president told the crowd that there were still fires on the Big Island – also known as Hawaii.

He pointed out the fires were blazing on the Big Island, not Maui, but appeared to struggle to name Maui.

‘The Army helicopters helped fire suppression efforts on the Big Island because there’s still some burning on the Big Island — not the one that, not the one where you see on television all the time,’ he said.

Biden, who was quick to approve a Federal Emergency, but who has been criticized by Republicans for not yet traveling to the devastated island, said he and his wife intended to visit soon.

‘My wife Jill and I are going to travel to Hawaii as soon as we can,’ he said.

‘That’s what I’ve been talking to the governor about.

‘I don’t want to get in the way. I’ve been to too many disaster areas. But I want to go make sure we got everything they need. Want to be sure we don’t disrupt the ongoing recovery efforts.’

On Sunday, he added to anger by replying ‘no comment’ when asked, after spending two hours at the beach in Delaware, for his reaction to the tragedy.

Kaniela Ing, a Democratic former member of Hawaii’s state legislature, said he was not satisfied by the Biden administration’s response.

‘I campaigned for you,’ he said. ‘Now, when I lose dozens of my friends, family, and neighbors – this?’

More than 3,000 people have registered for federal assistance, according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and that number was expected to grow.

FEMA was providing $700 to displaced residents to cover the cost of food, water, first aid and medical supplies, in addition to qualifying coverage for the loss of homes and personal property.

The Biden administration was also seeking $12 billion more for the government’s disaster relief fund, as part of its supplemental funding request to Congress.

The grim task of locating and identifying victims of the worst wildfire in the United States in 100 years was continuing on Tuesday.

While the area has been closed to the public, the state announced plans to reopen the Lahaina Bypass Road on Tuesday to locals. It will be open the entire public on Wednesday. 

Maui County officials said on Tuesday morning that they had combed only a third – about 32 percent of the search area, a week after the blazes near the destroyed town of Lahaina broke out.

John Pelletier, the Maui police chief, said in a Monday news conference that he hopes searchers will have covered 85 to 90 percent by the weekend.

On Tuesday, a mobile morgue unit finally arrived to help Hawaii officials working painstakingly to identify the 106 people confirmed killed.

The site was pictured being prepared by FBI agents on Sunday, but by Tuesday it was expected to be operational.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has deployed a team of coroners, pathologists and technicians along with exam tables, X-ray units and other equipment to identify victims and process remains, said Jonathan Greene, the agency’s deputy assistant secretary for response.

‘It’s going to be a very, very difficult mission,’ Greene said.

‘And patience will be incredibly important because of the number of victims.’

Just three bodies have been identified, and officials expected to start releasing names on Tuesday, Pelletier said.

He urged others who have missing relatives to submit DNA samples.

So far 41 samples have been submitted, the county statement said, and 13 DNA profiles have been obtained from remains.

Josh Green, the governor of Hawaii, said on Tuesday that children were among the missing.

‘Tragically, yes,’ he told Hawaii News Now. ‘When the bodies are smaller, we know it’s a child.’

He described some of the sites being searched as ‘too much to share or see from just a human perspective.’

Another complicating factor, Green said, is that storms with rain and high winds were forecast for the weekend.

Officials are mulling whether to ‘preemptively power down or not for a short period of time, because right now all of the infrastructure is weaker.’

A week after the fires started, some residents remained with intermittent power, unreliable cellphone service and uncertainty over where to get assistance.

Some people walked periodically to a seawall, where phone connections were strongest, to make calls.

Flying low off the coast, a single-prop airplane used a loudspeaker to blare information about where to get water and supplies.

The local power utility has already faced criticism for not shutting off power as strong winds buffeted a parched area under high risk for fire.

The official cause of the fire has not been confirmed, and it is not clear whether the utility’s equipment played any role in igniting the flames.

Shelee Kimura, the president of Hawaiian Electric, said many factors go into a decision to cut power, including the impact on people who rely on specialized medical equipment and concerns that a shutoff in the fire area would have knocked out water pumps.

Green has said the flames raced as fast as a mile every minute in one area, fueled by dry grass and propelled by strong winds from a passing hurricane .

The blaze that swept into centuries-old Lahaina last week destroyed nearly every building in the town of 13,000.

The Lahaina fire caused about $3.2 billion in insured property losses, according to calculations by Karen Clark & Company, a prominent disaster and risk modeling company.

The firm said more than 2,200 buildings were damaged or destroyed by flames, with about 3,000 damaged by fire or smoke or both.

Even where the flames have retreated, authorities have warned that toxic byproducts may remain, including in drinking water, after the flames spewed poisonous fumes.

That has left many unable to return home.

The Red Cross said 575 evacuees were spread across five shelters as of Monday.

Green said thousands of people will need housing for at least 36 weeks.

He said on Tuesday that some 450 hotel rooms and 1,000 Airbnb rentals were being made available.

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.

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. 

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. 

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.

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. 

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.

Hawaii‘s governor said on Thursday that the death toll from the Maui wildfires was likely to rise substantially, saying that it could eclipse the 1960 tsunami which killed 61 people.

The death toll is currently at 53, and a little earlier, with the toll at 36, Josh Green said it would rise. Officials will provide an update at 9:30pm EST on Thursday.

‘I’ll tell you, by the time this disaster is all described, I’m sure there will be dozens of people that lost their lives and billions of dollars of property that was destroyed,’ said Green.

He told CNN‘s Wolf Blitzer that 1,700 buildings were probably destroyed in the fire.

He said most buildings in Lahaina, a historic town in Maui, are completely gone, some of them still smoldering. 

Only some stone buildings are still standing, he said.

‘We also are only now getting some of our search and rescue personnel into other houses,’ Green said, adding that helicopters are also surveying the area.

The cause of the wildfire remains unknown.

The National Weather Service said dry vegetation, strong winds, and low humidity fueled them. 

Green said it was likely to prove a worse natural disaster than the tsunami of May 1960, sparked by an earthquake in Chile.

That tragedy left 61 people dead.

Hawaii is not immune to wildfires: in 2018, a total of 30,000 acres burnt, with flames fanned by Hurricane Lane.

This time, strong winds were caused by Hurricane Dora, which passed south of the islands. 

Wildfires occur every year in Hawaii, according to Thomas Smith, an environmental geography professor at the London School of Economics and Political Science – but this year’s fires are burning faster and bigger than usual.

Neighborhoods and businesses have been razed to the ground, and vehicles burned to a crisp across the western side of the island as the wildfires cut off most roads out of Lahaina. 

The town is one of Maui’s prime attractions, drawing two million tourists each year, or about 80 per cent of the island’s visitors.

The wildfires took most of Lahaina’s residents and visitors by surprise when they broke out late on Tuesday, forcing some to run for their lives and jump into the ocean to escape the fast-moving inferno.

Nicoangelo Knickerbocker, a 21-year-old resident of Lahaina, had just awoken from a nap on Tuesday evening when he saw the fires burning through his hometown. 

His mother and sister fled, while he and some and friends went to neighbors’ houses, helping people pack belongings and trying in vain to stem the flames with garden hoses.

‘It was so hot all around me, I felt like my shirt was about to catch on fire,’ he told AP from one of the four emergency shelters opened on the island. 

The shelters are housing more than 2,100 people, Hawaii News Now said.

Knickerbocker heard cars and a gas station explode, and soon after fled the town with his father, bringing with them only the clothes they were wearing and the family dog. 

‘It sounded like a war was going on,’ he said.

At least 20 people suffered serious burns, and several were airlifted to Oahu for medical treatment, said Ed Sniffen of the Hawaii Department of Transportation.

More than 11,000 visitors were evacuated from Maui.

Though at least 16 roads were closed, the airport was operating fully, he said.

Most of the roughly 400 evacuees at the War Memorial shelter on Thursday morning had arrived in shock, with an ’empty look,’ said Dr. Gerald Tariao Montano, a pediatrician who volunteered to work a six-hour shift on Wednesday night.

‘Some haven’t fully grasped that they lost everything,’ he said. 

He pleaded for donations of clothes, supplies, food, baby formula and diapers.

The fate of some of Lahaina’s cultural treasures remains unclear. 

The historic 60-foot-tall banyan tree marking the spot where Hawaiian King Kamehameha III’s 19th-century palace stood was still standing, though some of its boughs appeared charred, according to a Reuters witness.

Joe Biden approved a disaster declaration for Hawaii, allowing affected individuals and business owners to apply for federal housing and economic recovery grants, the White House said in a statement.

At least 36 people have been killed in the Hawaii wildfires with the death roll expected to rise as locals continue to ‘pull bodies from the water’ in Maui and frantically search for missing relatives. 

Maui firefighters are desperately hunting for survivors in the scorched remains of the historic town of Lahaina, which one resident says has nearly been ‘wiped off the map’.

All of the victims were in Lahaina, the ‘decimated’ town where some 271 buildings have been destroyed by the blaze which has ravaged 800 hectares of land, fanned by powerful winds. 

Lahaina, the former capital of the Hawaiian Kingdom, was a hub of history and culture on the island. 

Now, hundreds of people who lived there are homeless and countless relics have been destroyed.  

While the exact source of the fires remain unknown, they began on Tuesday fueled by strong winds from the passing Hurricane Dora. Low humidity and a prolonged drought season which dried trees also contributed to the disaster, according to officials.  

As fires closed in all the way up to the shoreline, frantic locals jumped into the water in the harbor to escape the flames on Tuesday night. Twelve people were rescued from the waves by boats. 

Governor Josh Green, who had been traveling with his family, today as distraught residents of Lahaina woke up to photos and videos of their homes entirely destroyed. 

‘We just had the worst disaster I’ve ever seen. All Lahaina is burnt to a crisp. It’s like an apocalypse,’ said one resident. 

Another escaped with his wife, children and dog and slept in a Whole Foods parking lot before waking to the news that their home had been destroyed. 

‘We got to this side of the island midnight last night, with my wife and dog, we slept in a parking lot at Whole Foods. We woke up and got on our phones to pictures of our house down to slab. Nothing but smoke and cinders. We have the clothes we got on, a dog and two kids. And here we are,’ he told NBC News. 

One local told reporters on Wednesday: ‘We’ve still got dead bodies floating on the seawall. They’ve been sitting there since last night. We’ve been pulling people out since last night, trying to save peoples’ lives.’ 

Authorities, who had earlier put the death toll at six, are struggling to find shelter for huge numbers of locals and tourists who fled the inferno, while firefighters are making little headway in battling the flames.

Some 11,000 people flew out of Maui yesterday and another 1,500 are expected to leave today if they can.  

The wildfires, which have been whipped up by strong winds from Hurricane Dora passing far to the south, took the island of Maui by surprise, leaving behind burned-out cars and smoking piles of rubble where historic buildings  stood.

Flames roared throughout the night, forcing adults and children to dive into the ocean to escape the fire. 

The blaze began early on Tuesday, threatening homes, businesses and more than 35,000 people on the island of Maui, the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency said. Thousands of tourists at the popular holiday destination are stuck on the island and seeking temporary shelter after being ordered to evacuate.

President Joe Biden has now ordered ‘all available federal assets’ to battle the wildfires and sent in Black Hawks to help douse the flames.

Democratic Senator for Hawaii, Brian Schatz, warned Lahaina has been ‘almost totally burned to the ground’ while a local resident described the town as ‘like a warzone’. 

Another witness said it was a scene of ‘utter devastation… It is far from hyperbole to say that Lahaina has been wiped off the map’.  

Officials are nervously awaiting a presidential declaration of emergency, which they hope will be made in the coming ‘hours or days’ as the state estimates it is facing billions of dollars of damage. 

At a press conference, Lt Governor Sylvia Luke said she had flown over Lahaina, a town of 12,000 people, to see the damage with her own eyes.

‘[It] was just so shocking and devastating… The whole town was devastated, the whole town was decimated,’ she said.

A longtime Maui resident who filmed the scenes of devastation in Lahaina said he would not share some footage as it was too graphic. Emerson Timmins told local news outlet KHON2 News: ‘There were cars abandoned on the road, I assume those people couldn’t get out in time.

‘They probably headed to the ocean, the ones that could make it, and people leaving their homes.

‘If a young person could barely get out of there with their family, then the elderly are trapped, those that are handicapped.

‘It’s terrifying to think about all those families losing their loved ones and their homes.’

Firefighters were still struggling to contain three of the biggest fires raging on the island by midnight on Wednesday – fueling fears that many will wake up on Thursday with their homes scorched to cinders. 

Meanwhile, Hawaii Governor Josh Green warned that there is not enough shelter ‘for long-term living’ to aid those several hundreds of residents who have lost homes in the wildfires. 

Currently, around 2,000 tourists are in shelters near the island’s airport. 

The entirety of West Maui remains without power, and has no landline or cellphone service due to the wildfires. 

 

A mass bus evacuation at Sheraton Maui Resort in Kaʻanapali late on Wednesday took tourist to Kahului Airport where travellers have been desperately trying to board departing flights.

Shelters remain open at War Memorial Gymnasium in Wailuku, Maui High School in Kahului and Hannibal Tavares Community Center in Pukalani, the state said early on Thursday morning. 

Governor Josh Green told CNN: ‘What we’re trying to do right now is to make sure that anyone who doesn’t need to be in Maui for anything but essential travel does not go to Maui. 

‘I’m making a call right now to all the people of Hawaii: If you have an ADU on your property, if you have a rental that’s not occupied right now, we will be promoting a program quite quickly to put people back into shelter.

‘We already struggle with homelessness and a severe shortage of housing in our state, so this of course exacerbates that problem.’ 

The harbor has been severely impacted – and there is widespread damage to the West Maui town, according to federal forces. 

Four helicopters have been deployed for water drops in Lahaina, while two Chinooks, along with four Windward Aviation helicopters and Black Hawks have been called in. 

Three helicopters from the US Coast Guard and US Navy were conducting search and rescue along the West Maui coastline late on Thursday night.

Maui Memorial Medical Center announced it had treated seven patients, two of which are in critical condition, for fire-related injuries.

Some are being treated for burns and smoke inhalation. An additional seven patients have been transferred to Oahu for specialty services. 

Wade Ebersole, Chief Operations Officer of the hospital said: ‘Our caregivers care deeply about this community’s health and well-being and are working to ensure that all of our patients’ needs are being met.

‘Our hearts and support are with our community and first responders during this challenging time.’

Satellite images, taken before and after the fires erupted, showed the devastation to the landscape and infrastructure. 

While tourists usually flock to Lahaina for its white sandy beaches and stunning resorts, for residents it is a town rich with heritage and filled with historical sites. 

Locals are fearing that the historic banyan tree in Lahaina, which has stood outside the town’s courthouse for 150 years, may have fallen victim to the flames.

Thought to be the oldest living banyan in Maui, the beautiful tree holds a special meaning for Hawaiians.

‘Only time will tell if it survives the injuries sustained in the fires, but it feels like a small beacon of hope in this disaster,’ said one person on social media.

Video appears to show the famous tree amongst the charred devastation, but still standing strong. 

‘Only time will tell if it survives the injuries sustained in the fires, but it feels like a small beacon of hope in this disaster,’ said one person sharing the footage online. 

Pictures revealed that the Lahaina Heritage Museum has been incinerated to the point that its roof has collapsed, according to CNN.

The Baldwin Home Museum – where the physician who saved Maui from an epidemic of smallpox lived in the 19th century – has reportedly been destroyed.

The Wo Hing Temple Museum, which was a social and spiritual meeting point for Hawaii’s Chinese immigrant community, has also been burned down in the travesty.

On Wednesday afternoon, Joe Biden called for Federal aid to reach Hawaii on Wednesday evening, and said the U.S. Coast Guard, Navy Third Fleets and U.S Marines are supporting response and rescue efforts.

Mayor Richard Bissen Jr confirmed the devastating fatalities: ‘I’m sad to report that just before coming on this, it was confirmed we’ve had 6 fatalities. We are still in a search and rescue mode.

‘We’ve had many dwellings – businesses, structures – that have been burned, many of them to the ground.

‘As a result of three fires that have occurred that are continuing here on our island we have had 13 evacuations from different neighborhoods and towns, we’ve had 16 road closures, we’ve opened five shelters.’  

Power remains out for 11,209 Hawaiians, and the fires are ongoing. 

James Kunane Tokioka, the state’s business, economic development and tourism director, said: ‘Local people have lost everything.

‘They’ve lost their house, they’ve lost their animals and it’s devastating.’ 

The National Weather Service has warned that more destruction is on the way.

Initiating a red flag warning, it said on Wednesday afternoon: ‘Very dry fuels combined with strong and gusty easterly winds and low humidities will produce critical fire weather conditions through the afternoon hours.’  

US President Joe Biden said in a statement: ‘Jill and I send our deepest condolences to the families of those who lost loved ones in the wildfires in Maui, and our prayers are with those who have seen their homes, businesses, and communities destroyed. 

‘We are grateful to the brave firefighters and first responders who continue to run toward danger, putting themselves in harm’s way to save lives.

‘I have ordered all available Federal assets on the Islands to help with response. The Hawaiian National Guard has mobilized Chinook Helicopters to help with fire suppression and search and rescue on the Island of Maui. 

‘The U.S. Coast Guard and Navy Third Fleets are supporting response and rescue efforts. The U.S. Marines are providing Black Hawk Helicopters to fight the fires on the Big Island. 

‘The Department of Transportation is working with commercial airlines to evacuate tourists from Maui, and the Department of the Interior and the United States Department of Agriculture stand ready to support post fire recovery efforts.

‘I urge all residents to continue to follow evacuation orders, listen to the instructions of first responders and officials, and stay alert.’

Victoria Wayne-Bowley was born and raised in the historic town of Lahaina. This morning the Hawaiian native woke up to non-stop phone calls from frantic friends and extended family claiming their homes had either burned down or were under threat from the devastating fires that have ravaged Maui.

‘Everyone is sleep deprived not knowing where their loved ones are. I never would have imagined this type of catastrophe. It’s the most devastating disaster in the history of Maui,’ Wayne Bowley told DailyMail.com. 

‘The whole Lahaina is a complete wasteland. There were people whose only choice was to jump into the ocean, while the coastguard raced to help them. It looks like Hiroshima.

‘Literally people were driving to dinner last night like everything was safe and in just a short period of time within 24 hours this happened,’ said Wayne-Bowley who lived in Lahaina for 25 years before moving to New Jersey, but still travels to Maui on a regular basis for work.

Wayne-Bowley and her family run a popular clothing company throughout the island called Maui Clothing Company with some 70 employees. As of this afternoon, cell phone usage was dodgy or no longer viable because of the fires. 

Her father Edward Wayne founded the business in 1982 which has grown to 14 stores. Three of which are under immediate threat.

‘We still can’t get in touch with our employees. No one is reachable in the Lahaina area,’ Wayne-Bowley explained. ‘I’ve been communicating through email, Instagram, Twitter and Facebook.

‘I am 99% sure that our original store on Front Street in Lahaina burned down today. My parents opened it in 1982, the year I was born. Back them it was called Lobster & Roses, but the name was changed to the Maui Clothing Company. 

‘Our other two stores, Maui WaterWear and Cruise Maui Boutique, are located in another shopping area called Whalers Village in Kaanapali which is also under threat.’

Both locations are Lahaina’s most popular tourist destinations for shopping.

‘It’s really sad to see this scale of devastation. We have family and friends that started restaurants and stores decades ago, only to be destroyed. There are historical landmarks that have been burned down.’

‘We don’t know all the details, but these are nostalgic places that people have gone to for the past 50 years that are no longer there.’

‘I feel sad. It’s devastating. It’s tragic and it’s heartbreaking. You feel like everyone is your family on the island and everyone treats each other like family.’

Longtime friend and well known dermatologist in Lahaina, Dr. George Martin narrowly escaped the deadly fire which came within just 1/4 mile away from his ranch with one hundred animals.

‘Our close friend Dr. Martin has close to one hundred animals, horses, chickens, ponies. He had to evacuate them all last and fortunately people from other parts of the island offered to help. That’s what people are like here. Everyone is helping and posting messages online saying they have land and to bring your animals.’

A disheartened local shared a heartbreaking Instagram post saying, ‘My brother says there are bodies on the ground in Lahaina.’

Devastating aerial video shows the extent of the damage in Lahaina, where thousands of locals fled in the dead of the night to escape being trapped. 

Claire Kent, who was among those who took to the water in boats, said she had lost ‘everything’. 

‘I am out of Lahaina, safe with a few friends in Waiehu. My home is gone, my town is gone, my job is gone. We lost everything. 

‘This is the scariest thing I have ever experienced. So incredibly devastated.’ 

Multiple burn patients were today flown out of Maui to Honolulu to be cared for as the ‘apocalyptic’ blazes rage on. 

The fires, fanned by strong winds from Hurricane Dora, have burned structures, forced evacuations and caused power outages in several communities.

The worst of the fires is on Maui. One is torching parts of northern Wailea – where tourist hotels like the Four Seasons and Hilton scatter the beach – and another has destroyed the town of Lahaina. 

A worker at the Four Seasons Wailea told DailyMail.com that the resort has not been affected aside from ‘some air quality issues’. The $990-a-night hotel is where the first season of The White Lotus was filmed.

A Lahaina resident whose home was burned down but stayed in the town to help told Hawaii News Now: ‘We’re gonna do our best to get past this and it’s gonna be tough… It’s going to take years to fix. This is not even the worst of it.’

‘This is an unprecedented disaster as an indirect result of Hurricane Dora passing just south of our island. It is truly devastating and my heart goes out to the residents of Maui and all those impacted,’ Lt. Governor Sylvie Luke said Wednesday morning. 

One fire in Kula, central Maui, is raging near to where Oprah recently purchased hundreds of acres of land. 

‘This is so unprecedented. An emergency in the night is terrifying… right now it is all-hands-on-deck and we are anxious for daybreak,’ Maui County spokesperson Mahina Martin said in the early hours of Wednesday morning. 

‘We are already in communication with other hospital systems about relieving the burden — the reality is that we need to fly people out of Maui to give them burn support because Maui hospital cannot do extensive burn treatment. 

‘In addition to dealing with disaster, we’re dealing with major transportation issues as well,’ she told CNN on Wednesday. 

‘911 is down. Cell service is down. Phone service is down. That’s been part of the problem. The Maui County has not been able to communicate with residents on the west side, the Lahaina side. 

‘What we are trying to do is deploy individuals to go into areas with satellite phone service. 

‘We have only been in contact with perhaps one hotel because the one hotel, the people in charge of that hotel have satellite phones. That’s the only way you can make connection. 

‘It’s impeding communication. It’s impeding efforts to evacuate residents and we are very concerned about that,’ she said. 

Fire chiefs yesterday warned residents to evacuate their homes before it is too late. 

‘The fire can be a mile or more from your house, but in a minute or two, it can be at your house. Burning airborne materials can light fires a great distance away from the main body of fire,’ Maui County Fire Assistant Chief Jeff Giesea said. 

Fire crews on Maui were battling multiple blazes concentrated in two areas: the popular tourist destination of West Maui and an inland, mountainous region.

Footage shot from a yacht in Lahaina Mooring Field in Maui shows the sky bruising as huge plumes of smoke rise from the fires. 

Video also shows fires raging through a residential area in Maui surrounded by grassland with black smoke billowing into the sky. 

The plan is to be first in line as dawn breaks. But sloth (and setting my alarm for the wrong day) gets the better of me and it’s not until 7.45am that I drag myself out of bed, throw on some shorts and a noisy shirt more suited to Hawaii than the Costa del Sol, and head for the battlefield.

But I’ve forgotten my armour — in the form of a rolled-up towel and heavy hardback book. Without those, I won’t stand a chance. So, it’s back to my room and then quick march for what I assume will be a bruising sortie.

There’s no time to lose, but, even so, I’m still in position nearly an hour before the gates to the pools open — the sangria from the night before (a litre of the stuff for £5 in a bar down the road) making its presence felt in a pernicious but predictable way.

The rules of engagement are unclear at this point — because a huge sign states clearly: ‘It is forbidden to reserve sunbeds.’ Either rules are going to be broken, or this particular rule is like the traffic lights in Naples — a suggestion rather than an order.

I imagine at this very moment similar scenes are being played out all across sweltering Europe, where simmering tensions have raised the temperature further due to what’s been dubbed ‘sunbed wars’.

There have been reports of beach bandits at the Costa Blanca resort of Torrevieja, near Benidorm, spreading out their towels on the beach as early as 5.30am — and then not appearing until several hours later, much to the chagrin of a local councillor. ‘By-laws mean police have the power to act when items are left on the beach in this way and it leads to conflict between beachgoers,’ he announced.

Here at the four-star Estival Torrequebrada, in Benalmadena, there was pandemonium last weekend when the gates to the pools, where the sunbeds await, did not open until 10am.

‘It was a stampede,’ says Jessica Russell, from Hertfordshire, on holiday with her husband Chris, a property developer, and their three children aged 16, 14 and ten. ‘People were barging past a woman in a wheelchair. It was horrible.’

But, on Tuesday, the hotel announced that the gates would open an hour earlier in the hope of avoiding such scenes. And it has worked — to a degree. The queue to grab a sunbed around the two pools where children are allowed is less than 50 yards long on Thursday morning. Mrs Russell is second in line — and chuffed about it. Her plan is to head to the far corner nearest the seafront where there are five, four-poster cabana-style sunbeds under swaying palm trees. They even come with blinds. She wants to bag them all.

‘The problem is that the Spanish man in front of me has the exact same idea. I would call it a friendly rivalry,’ says Mrs Russell. We will see about that.

Meanwhile, Tony Rogers, 43, from Birmingham, is first in line for the adults-only area — and, despite my tardy start, I’m not far behind him.

‘I’m here with my mum and her partner,’ says Mr Rogers. ‘Mum has got a bad leg, so I want to find her a nice sunbed for the day while I head off somewhere.’

I get the impression that although these various pincer movements are stressful, they are also a highlight of the day. A pre-breakfast adrenaline rush that adds a competitive edge to an otherwise lackadaisical day.

A challenge at which the British normally excel, especially when, as in the case here, there are few Germans about — not that, perish the thought, we want to indulge in national stereotypes.

Part of the reason for this early-morning scrummage is because the hotel does not have any sun loungers on the beach — for the simple reason that there is no dedicated beach.

The twin-towered, 14-storey hotel, with a casino and spa in the middle, stands imperiously on a rock face. All the tanning, all the shrieks from excited children as they drop into the water from twisty flumes, all the teenagers on the prowl for a holiday snog, and all the myriad activities (aqua gym at noon, water volleyball at 5pm etc), happen around four pools.

So it’s location, location, location on the sunbed front. Hayley Morris, 49, from the West Midlands, is here with her husband Jim, who introduces himself as a ‘continuous improvement manager’ for a floor company, and their two boys.

She suffers from transverse myelitis, a neurological condition which means she is paralysed in her right leg and uses a wheelchair. ‘On Sunday morning it was like the opening day of the New Year sales at Selfridges,’ says Mrs Morris.

‘As soon as the gates opened it was carnage — but things have calmed down now and, so far, I’ve always managed to get the spot I want near the pool, the toilets and the bar.’

In other words, to her and her husband’s delight, there seems to have been ‘continuous improvement’ since the implementation of new opening times.

But, similar to how Bob Dylan sang ‘you don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows’, you don’t have to be a statistician to work out that in a hotel with 385 rooms — of which at least 350 are likely to be double occupancy — you’ll require around 700 sunbeds to keep everyone happy. There are only 600 here.

‘It’s a difficult situation,’ concedes the hotel’s assistant manager, Miguel Angel Sanchez. ‘By law, we have to fence off and close the pool areas when there are no lifeguards on duty and at night. So there is bound to be a slight rush in the morning — but as you can see the queues are orderly.’

They are orderly. Respectful and admirably jovial, too, thanks in part — and let’s take a bow given that we’ve not much else to celebrate — to the majority of those in the queue being British. ‘Show us a queue and we’ll join it,’ as Mrs Russell puts it.

‘Which way are you heading?’ I ask head-of-the-queue Mr Rogers, with a minute to go before the off.

‘Not sure,’ he says, clearly reluctant to divulge his strategy. ‘You?’

I’m going for the grassy area down the end because I’m an evening-light man and I’ve been following the sun’s movement, but I know that four women from the Wirral hope to be in that very spot.

I had engaged those four friendly women in conversation the day before when I made a recce after arriving at the hotel at lunchtime — and particularly admired their towel clips in the shape of flip-flops which, in the case of Lindsay Hayes, holds in place her pink, fluorescent Gucci towel.

‘We like it here because we’ve got a couple of umbrellas. We’re having a brilliant time,’ says Mrs Hayes.

‘There’s nothing wrong with queuing in a situation like this. It’s part and parcel of a holiday.’

She might be right. Every moment is precious on a peak-time break in August, so you want to be in prime position. And let’s be clear: there’s no social divide about queuing. After all, elderly, well-heeled members of the MCC line up in their egg and bacon ties outside Lord’s cricket ground from 5am to grab a seat in the pavilion, especially when the Aussies are in town.

It’s a similar story at Wimbledon, with tennis fans camping out to buy tickets — just as some people waited in line for hours before the recent Bruce Springsteen concert in Hyde Park in the hope of being up front and personal with The Boss. I know that because I was one of them.

The problem comes when people try to hog their sunbed for the whole day. That’s why Hotel Estival has introduced a 45-minute rule. It works like this — in theory: you bag your sunbed and put a towel, book or some other item on it. Then you can disappear for breakfast or lunch or go anywhere you like but must be back within 45 minutes.

Indeed, a member of staff from time to time places a laminated note on unoccupied sunbeds which reads: ‘Please do not leave the towels on the sunbeds for more than 45 minutes without your presence, otherwise the towels will be removed.’

But there’s no evidence to suggest that this threat is enforced any more stringently than fighting petty crime is taken seriously by the police back home in the UK.

It’s now almost 9.30am and those of us who joined the queues before breakfast have been rewarded.

Mrs Russell has reserved a couple of four-poster cabanas (although the Spanish man managed to grab three adjoining ones); Mrs Morris is near the pool, bar and loos, and Mr Rogers has sorted out a prized spot for his mother. Me? I’ve secured a sunbed next to the women from the Wirral and will be well-placed for sunset refreshments.

It feels immensely satisfying, especially when a few late-comers breeze in and realise that this has been a game of musical sunbeds — but without the music.

I dare say that one day, great minds will work out why the British are prepared to go to such lengths. It’s one of life’s imponderables.

For now, we might as well borrow a crowning principle that served our late Queen Elizabeth II well — even though, admittedly, Her Majesty never had to stand in line to bag a sunbed at a sprawling Costa del Sol hotel.

But good advice all the same. ‘Never complain, never explain.’

It’s a picture certain to raise Instagram likes: a clear blue sky background, a look at the calm ocean and a colourful billowing dress soaring in the wind.

These images, known as ‘flying dress photos’, largely started out on the picturesque Greek island of Santorini, with whitewashed buildings and the sapphire sea providing the perfect backdrop to eye-catching frocks with enormous trains.

But they have since become popular in other tourist spots, such as Hawaii, Dubai and Jamaica.

Looking like they could feature in a high-end fashion magazine, the images have become increasingly common, with several businesses now offering nothing but ‘flying dress photoshoots’.

Speaking to FEMAIL, Stacey Williams, a photographer based on the island of Oahu, Hawaii, started her business devoted to the trend in April 2021, booking typically 12 to 15 photoshoots a month, which cost customers from $800 (£622) plus tax.

Her clients (ranging in age from 30 to 50 and located across the world) have reserved slots as far out as June 2024 already – so the craze seems to show no signs of slowing down. 

She explained how the ’empowering’ shoots are often booked for milestone birthdays (even an 80th on one occasion) as well as family photos, anniversaries and to celebrate major life changes.

The photographer said: ‘While many are in pursuit of that beautiful image to post on Instagram or hang on their wall, most of our clients are doing it for the experience. 

‘It might be their first solo trip and they want to celebrate that and feel empowered, or they want to celebrate something they have accomplished or overcome in life. 

‘When I started this business and started working with the flying dresses I never knew what they would mean to our clients. 

‘Many struggle with insecurities, however there is something truly special about how beautiful you feel when you put on this long train dress and feel the wind flowing through it.’ 

Stacey – who supplies the dresses for her clients and assists with planning the location or transportation, makeup artists and even drone footage – initially wanted her own red flying dress to use during her journeys around the world.

‘However once I put the dress on I immediately knew I needed to offer it to every other woman out there,’ she explained. 

‘I wanted them to feel as amazing as I did in it and I was also inspired creatively to capture images of these dresses against the Hawaii landscapes.’

She continued: ‘I have always been impressed by the beautiful flying dress images in Santorini and in 2021 I discovered a local company on Maui was manufacturing flying dresses so I felt it was the perfect time to try them out on Oahu.’

A customer from Texas recently reviewed the experience, saying: ‘Stacey and her stylist made my 50th birthday photoshoot amazing! I felt like a model. I felt beautiful. I felt empowered! 

Another wrote: ‘No matter what your insecurities are, they just vanish when you are in this dress. The wind and the sun… it’s just perfect.’

Several photoshoots around the world are priced upwards of €550 (£477) per hour per person, according to Bloomberg Línea. The publication estimated that a business committed to providing the Instagrammable holiday photo can make more than a quarter million pounds (£388,465) in just four months.

They noted that most clients will add on other costly services, including transportation, makeup and hair styling and several dress options. A customer booking a full package could pay €1,500 (£1,302)

‘We’ve had persons who travelled just for their [flying-dress] shoot,’ Chrisan Hunter, founder of the flying-dress photo service HerDressJamaica told the publication.

‘They come for three days, and then they go home,’ she explained, adding that the business ‘never handles less than 30 shoots per month.’ The prices range from £271 to £349 per hour per person.

Those booking a photoshoot with HerDressJamaica can pick from five different photographers and the dress, hair and makeup are all taken care of, reported CNN.

Explaining how they get the dresses to ‘fly’, Chrisan said: ‘All our shoots include an assistant. 

‘We get our clients dressed and everything, and then once it’s time to shoot, we coordinate with the photographer and it’s a 1, 2, 3 count. We throw up the dress, he catches (the shot) fast.’

One company, Flying Dress Photo, based in Santorini, says they offer their clients a ‘once in a lifetime photoshoot to make you feel like one in a million.’

Sandra Upton, founder of Upton Consulting Group revealed how she had a flying-dress photo taken in Greece in 2022 to mark a year to the month that she made the decision to relaunch her own firm. 

Celebrities have also got in on the action; Jessie James Decker had a mini-me moment with her look-alike daughter Vivianne Rose, then seven, in June 2021 as the two twinned while taking part in a ‘flying dress photoshoot’ during their holiday to Santorini in Greece.

The American country singer and her eldest child with former football star Eric Decker were seen in matching silk fuchsia gowns that blew in the wind as they posed on a mountain top with villas surrounding them.

‘Got to play dress up at sunset with my sweet girl. Thank you @santorinidress for making us feel fancy,’ said the Kittenish designer in her caption for her 3.6million Instagram followers.

The show-stopping dresses had impressive 10ft long trains that blew up in the wind while the pair posed as the sun went down over the Mediterranean Sea.

Kendra Wilkinson opened up about her relationship with her ex-husband, Hank Baskett, in an interview published on Monday.

The 37-year-old model praised the former NFL player — with whom she was previously married to for almost a decade — for being ‘the greatest father to my kids’, according to Us Weekly.

‘I’ll forever love my ex-husband, you know,’ the reality TV star said while promoting the sophomore season of her show, Kendra Sells Hollywood. 

The real estate agent — who shared rare snaps of her kids while vacationing in Hawaii last December — and the wide receiver share two children.

The former couple were married for nearly a decade before calling it quits in 2018.

During their marriage, Wilkinson and Baskett welcomed son Hank IV, 13, and daughter Aaliyah, nine.

The Girls Next Door alum said despite their split, the former couple still have a great coparenting relationship. 

‘He’s the greatest father to my kids, and that’s all I really just ask for,’ she continued. ‘That itself is so good.’

‘It’s good enough, and if later down the line things happen, then they happen,’ she said on the topic of their future.

‘I will always love him and I loved him once,’ the SoCal native added. ‘Love doesn’t just go away.’

‘We only have a short time on Earth, and once you love someone, I will always love them, you know? And my kids are just so happy, and they’re so taken care of.’

As for her dating life post-divorce, she revealed she does not have any desire to start another relationship yet.

‘Dating is still very nonexistent,’ she said. ‘It’s really [not in] my head right now, because I’m really so in love with building my new career in business and focused on my two kids.’

The Sliding Into Home author also added that she does not have time to date since she prioritizes her children in her schedule and prefers to be as hands-on as possible. 

‘I don’t have [a] nanny or housekeeping [service], so I don’t really have a lot of time to give to some dude,’ Wilkinson explained.

‘You know, it’s just not really exciting for me to think that way,’ she continued. ‘It’s more exciting to sell houses and feel that good feeling.’

She added: ‘I love what I’m doing and if I’m loving what I’m doing, I don’t see the purpose in changing that and giving my time to another person and hoping that it works.’ 

She also spoke about her docuseries in which she has taken up selling exclusive properties in California. 

‘It just really makes me feel good about myself when I close deals,’ she said. ‘And my kids are proud of me when I do that.’

Wilkinson continued: ‘They won’t be proud of me if I bring in some strange dude. It’s just, like, they’re proud of me for closing deals, and that’s what I want to continue.’

On the topic of Kendra Sells Hollywood, which debuted in 2021, she said: ‘I’m really grateful for this chance I’m getting in my life, so I don’t really know if I date someone … it’s like I wouldn’t want to take away from this great experience for, you know, like a date or something.’

Previously, Wilkinson and Baskett exchanged vows in a lavish wedding held at the Playboy Mansion in Los Angeles in June 2009.

Two weeks later, the former companion to Hugh Hefner and Baskett announced that they were expecting their first child together. 

In December 2009, the pair welcomed their son — the fourth Hank in the Baskett lineage.

Five years later, the former couple welcomed their daughter, Aaliyah, in May.

Earth has a new moon – or at least a ‘quasi-moon’, a new study has revealed. 

A quasi-moon is a space rock that circles the Earth, but is gravitationally bound by the sun. 

This quasi-moon, called 2023 FW13, was discovered by experts using the Pan-STARRS telescope at the top of the Haleakala volcano in Hawaii, and is one of a handful of known quasi-moons. 

Experts think the ancient cosmic companion has been in Earth’s vicinity since 100 BC and will keep circling our planet for at least another 1,500 years, until AD 3700. 

Thankfully, neither 2023 FW13 or a similar quasi-moon called 469219 Kamoʻoalewa are thought to pose any danger to people on Earth. 

Quasi-moons, also known as ‘quasi-satellites’, often look like they are orbiting our planet much like our natural satellite the moon (affectionately known as ‘Luna’).

But they are given the prefix ‘quasi’ because they are gravitationally bound to the sun rather than Earth, rather than the other way around as is the case for Luna.

2023 FW13 is different from our moon because it orbits well outside of Earth’s ‘Hill sphere’, the region around a planetary body where its own gravity is the dominant force attracting satellites. 

Earth’s Hill sphere has a radius of 932,000 miles (1.5 million km), while the radius of 2023 FW13 from Earth is quite a bit larger – around 1.6 million miles. 

‘The dimension of the loop – about 0.18 astronomical unit in radius – is so large that Earth plays essentially no role in its motion,’ Alan Harris, senior research scientist at Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colorado, told Sky & Telescope. 

‘[2023 FW13 is] in no way associated with Earth other than by chance.’ 

2023 FW13 was first observed on March 28 by PanSTARRS before its existence was confirmed by several other telescopes. 

After being confirmed, 2023 FW13 was listed by the Minor Planet Center at the International Astronomical Union (IAU). 

Although the size of 2023 FW13 is unconfirmed, asteroid specialist Richard Binzel estimates it to be about 30 to 50 feet in diameter (10 to 15 metres). 

This is just a tiny fraction of the diameter of our moon, which is 2,159 miles (although a moon is classified as such because of its orbital characteristics rather than its size). 

2023 FW13’s orbit around the sun takes almost exactly the same time as Earth – 365.42 days (1.0005 Earth years). 

While it performs a circle of Earth on its orbital journey, this orbit is so elongated that it reaches out halfway to Mars and reaches in halfway to Venus. 

Earth has several known cosmic companions, many of which are quasi-satellites, although as 2023 FW13 demonstrates there are likely many more to be discovered.

Quasi-satellites tend to follow a ‘stable’ path around Earth for more than a few decades before eventually leaving the planet’s orbit.

2023 FW13 is special because it will has been in its quasi-state for centuries and will remain so ‘for many more centuries to come’, said amateur astronomer Tony Dunn. 

An online simulator created by Dunn shows the orbit of 2023 FW13 in relation to the moon, the sun and other planets in the solar system. 

Another famous quasi-satellite known as 469219 Kamoʻoalewa or 2016 HO3 was also discovered by PanSTARRS back in April 2016. 

469219 Kamoʻoalewa, which is up to 330 feet in diameter, will only be in this orbit for around 300 years in the future, according to Renu Malhotra, a University of Arizona expert. 

Malhotra authored a recent study that found 469219 Kamoʻoalewa could be an ancient fragment of our moon. 

Analysis of light reflected from the space rock suggested it’s made from the same material as minerals in lunar rocks from NASA‘s Apollo missions.