Maui fires death toll rises to 80, marking deadliest natural disaster in Hawaii history
Update: Read our latest coverage here.
The Maui wildfires are now the deadliest natural disaster in state history. At least 80 people have been killed, county officials said Friday night, and many are still missing.
The blazes remain ongoing as of Saturday morning, with fire crews battling flare-ups overnight. Gov. Josh Green warned that the death toll would likely rise as search and rescue operations continue.
"This is gonna go down in history as one of the worst disasters ever in Hawaii, we've lost so much," said Shane Dudoit, the deputy director of parks and recreation for Maui County, in an interview with "CBS Saturday Mornings." A Federal Emergency Management Agency search and rescue team arrived Thursday night with two cadaver dogs, officials said Friday.
Evacuations and an assessment of the destruction on Maui are ongoing. The Pacific Disaster Center and the Federal Emergency Management Agency released a fire damage estimate Saturday that estimates about 2,207 structures have been damaged or destroyed and about 2,170 acres of land burned. The estimate said that about 86% of the damaged structures are homes, and about 4,500 people will need shelter.
It will cost about $5.52 billion to rebuild, the agency said.
President Biden declared a major disaster on Maui while traveling in Utah on Thursday. He pledged that the federal response will ensure that "anyone who's lost a loved one, or whose home has been damaged or destroyed, is going to get help immediately." Mr. Biden promised to streamline requests for assistance and said the Federal Emergency Management Agency was "surging emergency personnel" on the island.
People remain missing as blazes continue
The death toll has continued to rise, with search and rescue operations continuing and many people still unaccounted for.
Officials were unable to provide an estimate on the number of people who are missing. "Honestly, we don't know," Maui County Police Chief John Pelletier told reporters. The U.S. Department of Agriculture is working on finding missing pets and reuniting them with their owners, as well as working on large-animal removal, the Federal Emergency Management Agency said on social media.
Meanwhile, the fires are continuing to burn. CBS affiliate KGMB-TV, citing authorities, said three large fires on Maui, including the one in Lahaina, were still active, but firefighters appeared to be focusing mostly on hotspots after airdrops conducted for the first time on Wednesday, when winds began to die down, were finally able to beat down flames. On Friday afternoon, Maui County said the Lahaina wildfire was 85% contained.
Crews were contending with flare-ups with all fires, Maui County officials said.
About 4,500 homes and businesses across Maui had no power as of Friday afternoon, according to PowerOutage.us. The local utility, Hawaiian Electric, said it was "asking West Maui customers without power to prepare for extended outages that could last several weeks in some areas."
The Lahaina blaze is already the state's deadliest natural disaster since a 1960 tsunami that killed 61 people on the Big Island and the deadliest U.S. wildfire since the 2018 Camp Fire in California, which killed at least 85 people and laid waste to the town of Paradise.
Fueled by a dry summer and strong winds from Hurricane Dora passing far to the south, the fire started Tuesday and took Maui by surprise, racing through parched brush covering the island and then flattening homes and anything else in its path. Maui County Mayor Richard Bissen Jr. previously said officials hadn't yet begun investigating the immediate cause of the fires, but officials did point to the combination of dry conditions, low humidity and high winds.
Destruction in Lahaina, an area at high risk
The historic town of Lahaina was devastated by the fires, but its wildfire risk was well known. Maui County's hazard mitigation plan, last updated in 2020, identified Lahaina and other West Maui communities as having frequent wildfire ignitions and a large number of buildings at risk of wildfire damage.
"Lahaina, with a few rare exceptions, has been burned down," Green said during a Thursday news conference after walking the ruins of the town with Bissen. "Without a doubt, it feels like a bomb was dropped on Lahaina."
The 2020 report noted that West Maui had the island's highest population of people living in multi-unit housing, the second-highest rate of households without a vehicle and the highest rate of non-English speakers, which the plan warned "may limit the population's ability to receive, understand and take expedient action during hazard events."
Maui's firefighting efforts may also have been hampered by a small staff, said Bobby Lee, the president of the Hawaii Firefighters Association. There are 65 firefighters at most working at any given time in Maui County, and they're responsible for fighting fires on three islands — Maui, Molokai and Lanai — he said.
Those crews have about 13 fire engines and two ladder trucks, but they're all designed for on-road use. The department doesn't have any off-road vehicles, he said. That means fire crews can't attack brush fires thoroughly before they reach roads or populated areas, Lee explained. The high winds caused by Dora made that extremely difficult, he said.
"You're basically dealing with trying to fight a blowtorch," Lee said. "You've got to be careful — you don't want to get caught downwind from that because you're going to get run over in a wind-driven fire of that magnitude."
Mandatory evacuation orders were in place for Lahaina residents, Bissen noted, while tourists in hotels were told to shelter in place so emergency vehicles could get into the area.
Some residents were being allowed to return to the area to check on their property, beginning Friday afternoon, but a daily curfew will be in effect in the disaster area.
Liza Tobias returned to her home in Lahaina on foot Thursday to find it in ruins and her father Carlo Tobias missing after he refused to leave Tuesday night.
"I wanted to force him to come with me, but he was very hardheaded and he didn't want to come," she told CBS affiliate KGMB-TV.
Maui County officials said in an update late Friday afternoon that barricades patrolled by officers were in place in certain parts of Lahaina town because "burning areas are highly toxic." The public was advised to beware of hot spots and wear a mask and gloves.
"It's a heartbreaking day," Green said during his Thursday news conference. "Without a doubt, what we saw is catastrophic."
"When you see the full extent of the destruction in Lahaina, it will shock you," Green added, according to KGMB-TV. "All of the buildings virtually are gonna have to be rebuilt. It will be a new Lahaina that Maui builds in its own image, with its own values ... What we're telling you is we will rebuild."
Questions about the warning system
Hawaii boasts what the state describes as the largest integrated outdoor all-hazard public safety warning system in the world, with about 400 sirens positioned across the island chain to alert people to various natural disasters and other threats. But many of Lahaina's survivors said in interviews at evacuation centers that they didn't hear any sirens and only realized they were in danger when they saw flames or heard explosions nearby.
Hawaii Attorney General Anne Lopez announced Friday that her agency would conduct a "comprehensive review of critical decision-making and standing policies leading up to, during, and after the wildfires."
Hawaii emergency management records show no indication that warning sirens were triggered when the wildfires erupted Tuesday, officials confirmed Thursday. Instead, officials sent alerts to mobile phones, televisions and radio stations — but widespread power and cellular outages may have limited their reach. It's not clear if those alerts were sent before widespread power and cellular outages cut off most communication to Lahaina.
Maui Fire Department Chief Brad Ventura said the fire moved so quickly from brush to neighborhood that it was impossible to get messages to the emergency management agencies responsible for emergency alerts.
Lahaina business owner J.D. Hessemer said he decided to evacuate early in the morning before the fires reached the town, without ever hearing an emergency alert.
"The winds were just getting out of control. Power lines were down everywhere and we had to reroute," Hessemer told "CBS Mornings" on Friday. "...We just decided it was not safe to stay around for the day."
He said he received no official warning or instructions to evacuate.
"I received nothing at no point in time. I got nothing on my phone," he said.
Dustin Kaleiopu fled Lahaina with his grandfather. He told CBS News on Thursday that there wasn't any warning about the fire and they left with only what they were wearing.
"The smoke was starting to come through our windows. By the time we got in our car, our neighbor's yard was on fire. There were strangers in our yard with their water hoses trying to put fires out," Kaleiopu said.
William Bugle, 76, told CBS News correspondent Jonathan Vigliotti he was burned on his arm when the roof blew off his house and he was hit by red-hot shingles. "It went from like nothing to, like, I felt this heat, this tremendous heat," Bugle said.
Thomas Leonard, a 70-year-old retired mailman from Lahaina, didn't know about the fire until he smelled smoke. Power and cell phone service had both gone out earlier that day, leaving the town with no real-time information about the danger.
He tried to leave in his Jeep but had to abandon the vehicle and run to the shore when cars nearby began exploding. He hid behind a seawall for hours, the wind blowing hot ash and cinders over him.
Firefighters eventually arrived and escorted Leonard and other survivors through the flames to safety.
The mayor said downed power poles added to the chaos as people attempted to flee Lahaina by cutting off two important roads out of town. Speaking at the Thursday news conference, Bissen said 29 poles fell with live wires still attached, and leaving only the narrow highway toward Kahakuloa.