By Marco Garcia
KAHULUI, Hawaii (Reuters) -The death toll from Maui's wildfires rose to 53 on Thursday as the fast-moving conflagration that turned the resort town of Lahaina into smoldering ruins was 80% contained, officials said.
The island that forms part of the U.S. state of Hawaii was caught off guard by at least three major fires that broke out Tuesday night, cutting off the western side of the island and the historic city of Lahaina, where more than 270 structures were destroyed or damaged.
Many more people suffered burns, smoke inhalation and other injuries. Search and rescue efforts continue, and thousands of people have fled into emergency shelters or left the island.
The wildfires took most of Lahaina's residents and visitors by surprise, forcing some to jump into the ocean to escape the fast-moving inferno. Thousands of tourists were trying to leave Maui, many of them camped in the airport waiting for flights.
Vixay Phonxaylinkham, a tourist from Fresno, California, said he was trapped on Lahaina's Front Street in a rental car with his wife and children as the fires approached, forcing the family to abandon the car and jump into the Pacific Ocean.
"We floated around four hours," Phonxaylinkham said from the airport while awaiting a flight off the island, describing how they held onto pieces of wood for floatation.
"It was a vacation that turned into a nightmare. I heard explosions everywhere, I heard screaming, and some people didn’t make it. I feel so sad," he said.
The death toll rose by 17 on Thursday to reach 53, Maui County said in a statement that also reported the Lahaina fire was 80% contained, as firefighters secured the perimeter of the wildland areas that burned.
The Pulehu fire, about 20 miles (30 km) east of Lahaina, was 70% contained. There was no estimate for the Upcountry fire in the center of the eastern mass of the island, Maui County said.
The Lahaina fire reduced entire neighborhoods to ashes on the western side of the island. Lahaina is one of Maui's prime attractions, drawing 2 million tourists each year, or about 80% of the island's visitors.
Tourists and locals alike fled with few or none of their belongings as the fire spread rapidly due to dry conditions, a buildup of fuels and strong winds.
"It was so hot all around me, I felt like my shirt was about to catch on fire," said Nicoangelo Knickerbocker, a 21-year-old resident of Lahaina, said from one of the four emergency shelters opened on the island.
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.
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, pleading for donations of clothes, supplies, food, baby formula and diapers.
The fires were the worst disaster to befall Hawaii since 1960, one year after it became a U.S. state, when a tsunami killed 61 people.
The fate of some of Lahaina's cultural treasures remains unclear. The historic 60-foot(18-meter)-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.
"We will need to rebuild the entirety of Lahaina, I believe," Governor Green told KHON 2 television.
U.S. President Joe Biden approved a disaster declaration for Hawaii, allowing affected individuals and business owners to apply for federal housing and economic recovery grants.
The cause of the Maui wildfires has yet to be determined, officials said, but the National Weather Service said dry vegetation, strong winds, and low humidity fueled them.
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.
The Big Island of Hawaii also experienced at least two major brush fires.
Scenes of fiery devastation have become all too familiar elsewhere in the world this summer. Wildfires, often caused by record-setting heat, forced the evacuation of tens of thousands of people in Greece, Spain, Portugal and other parts of Europe. In western Canada, a series of unusually severe fires sent clouds of smoke over vast swaths of the U.S., polluting the air.
Human-caused climate change, driven by fossil fuel use, is increasing the frequency and intensity of such extreme weather events, scientists say, having long warned that countries must slash emissions to prevent climate catastrophe.
(Reporting by Marco Garcia in Kahului; Additional reporting by Rich McKay, Brendan O'Brien, Joseph Ax and Jonathan Allen; Writing by Jonathan Allen and Daniel Trotta; Editing by Sandra Maler and Stephen Coates)
© (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2023.
23 Comments
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stormcrow
Tragic. Thoughts and prayers.
kintsugi
The deceased will need to be located and removed to burial grounds. It will take months.
gcFd1
Terrible disaster, with Hurricane Dora being a main factor in the high winds that propelled across Maui.
Mother Nature is usually close to disasters.
sunfunbun
No. Global warming by humans is the main factor. Winds exacerbate to spread fire, but the reason it happened is global warming caused drying of the area that would not have happened even 10 year ago.
If people cannot deal with the science because they're incapable of reading all the information, they should quit finding the wrong cherry picked narrative to blame a hurricane for the fire itself. The brush was dried by global warming.
Human-caused climate change, driven by fossil fuel use, is increasing the frequency and intensity of such extreme weather events, scientists say, having long warned that countries must slash emissions to prevent climate catastrophe.
gcFd1
Wrong.
*Another major factor was a large difference in atmospheric pressure in the north and south of the island, brought about by Hurricane Dora (situated to the south). Winds which usually flow from higher to lower-pressure areas were made stronger due to the low-pressure conditions towards the south. These strong air currents quickly spread fires.*
https://www.sportskeeda.com/pop-culture/how-fire-maui-start-potential-lahaina-banyan-tree-loss-leaves-netizens-distraught#:~:text=Another%20major%20factor%20was%20a%20large%20difference%20in,south.%20These%20strong%20air%20currents%20quickly%20spread%20fires.
virusrex
Not wrong, your quoted text do not in no way contradict the contribution of the climate change to the extreme weather events becoming more important and frequent. That claim is completely yours and have not been supported by the opinion of any expert.
Strangerland
Poster A: It's climate change
Poster B: Not, it's all these things that are a result of climate change, but how dare you say it's climate change.
Notice it's only people from a certain political party from a certain country, and Russians, who deny climate change?
Blacklabel
Oh this story again. I shared the other day that many people from many political parties from many countries, including Canada, aren’t buying this human climate change nonsense.
it’s summer, it’s hot. Show me heat in winter or a typhoon 2 months outside of typhoon season we can talk.
gcFd1
Wrong. Why troll on this topic? It is very disrespectful.
Again, the sources cite the winds generated by Hurricane Dora as a major factor:
Another **major factor was a large difference in atmospheric pressure in the north and south of the island, brought about by Hurricane Dora** (situated to the south). Winds which usually flow from higher to lower-pressure areas were made stronger due to the low-pressure conditions towards the south. These strong air currents quickly spread fires.
EFD
They're called morons and every country has some.
As does this site full of climate deniers in the year 2023. Some of you probably believe in the Easter Bunny as well.
Jimizo
I’m pretty sure this is not what Galileo would have said if he were here now.
”Doctor, the patient is running a temperance over 40 degrees Celsius”
”Yawn, wake me up when he spontaneously combusts”.
You told us you had multiple degrees in the sciences.
Which majors?
Blacklabel
Oh so your boy is…..wrong?
he claims MAGA Republicans in the USA are the only ones.
please educate him.
gcFd1
Galileo wasn't a medical doctor.
Blacklabel
Do you only have a 40 temperature when you are sick?
cant your body temp rise when….it’s hot? Like it is in….summer?
njca4
Yes blacklabel, isn't it strange how people from counties that stand to benefit from climate change (including Canada) are denying that human made climate change is a thing ?
Blacklabel
These it’s hot people totally disappear from Halloween to Easter.
kintsugi
The governor of Hawaii said it will many years to rebuild.
njca4
I think this is a case of "until it bites me in the ass, I don't care" ... Always the way with your and Republican tribe ... "We're against abortion full stop, no exceptions !!... Oh damn, I've got the intern pregnant, abortions are OK" ... "We don't believe in climate change, it's a hoax, but can we have some of those disaster relief funds because my state is under water from another flood that's not supposed to happen for another 100 years"...
Desert Tortoise
Some facts to clear up. The winds on Maui were not from the Hurricane passing well to the south of the Hawaiian Island chain. They were caused by a pressure gradient. The Hurricane is a low pressure weather system. The lower the pressure in the eye of a hurricane the greater its strength. To the north there was a high pressure system. The difference in atmospheric pressure between that high pressure ridge to the north and the low pressure hurricane to the south along with their relative closeness created a "pressure gradient" that leads to high winds. The winds were often hurricane strength, a measure of wind speed, but the winds were not the winds of the hurricane to the south. That hurricane was too far away for its winds to affect the islands directly. Rather it was the difference in atmospheric pressure between the low and high pressure systems that caused winds of hurricane speed. Does that make sense?
Exacerbating that was a prolonged drought on the leeward sides of the mountains on the various Hawaiian Islands that left lots of dry fuel that was ready to burn.
Desert Tortoise
No. It should not. Your body should make you sweat to cool it to regulate temperature, and if that isn't enough it will dilate blood vessels near the skin to shed heat. If your body in still unable to regulate its temperature and your temperature starts to rise you are experiencing a medical emergency called heat stroke.
Strangerland
Then how do you explain their existing climate change proposal?
Sounds like right-wing rhetoric. Trudeau's name sends right-wingers world-wide into a frenzy, worse than Voldermort's name did to wizards in Harry Potter.
EFD
One wonder just how thick one has to be to believe that man-made climate change is not a real thing.
Apparently Trump-supporter thick.
Strangerland
Vivek Ramaswamy says US ‘climate change agenda’ is a ‘hoax’
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4150183-ramaswamy-calls-climate-change-agenda-a-hoax/
They're all from one party in one country.