Hawaii Officials Liken Wildfire Destruction to ‘War Zone’ as Death Toll Hits 67
20:24 GMT 11.08.2023 (Updated: 23:41 GMT 11.08.2023)
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The death toll has continued to climb on the Hawaiian island of Maui, where high winds drove uncontrollable wildfires through several towns earlier this week before residents and tourists could evacuate.
Richard Bissen Jr., the mayor of Maui island, told US media on Friday that he had viewed the devastated area on the island’s west coast with other Hawaii politicians and found it virtually unrecognizable.
“The closest thing I can compare it to is perhaps a war zone or maybe a bomb went off. It was cars in the street, doors open, you know, melted to the ground. Most structures no longer exist,” Bissen said. “For blocks and blocks of this.”
“I’m familiar with what it looked like growing up here on Maui, especially with my mom working at one of the restaurants there … for 17 years. And so it doesn’t resemble anything that it looked like when I was growing up,” he added.
The center of the destruction was the historic town of Lahaina, which was both a popular tourist destination due to its picturesque old town but also of great importance in Hawaiian history, having once served as the capital of the entire archipelago after it was united into a single kingdom in the late 18th century.
10 August 2023, 16:24 GMT
The flames swept through Lahaina so quickly on Wednesday that evacuation arteries were clogged, with added confusion created by the fire’s smoke being blown sideways by winds of up to 60 miles per hour. Many fled to the ocean to escape the flames, including those in their cars on the highway as the fire advanced behind them.
The death toll has risen to 67 from 36 a day earlier, and is expected to continue to rise as a more complete picture of the damage is assembled.
Hundreds of structures are destroyed, including 80% of Lahaina Town, formerly a town of 15,000. Even boats moored at the town harbor burned or melted, the aggression of the flames was so intense.
Burnt out cars line the sea walk after the wildfire on Friday, Aug. 11, 2023, in Lahaina, Hawaii. Hawaii emergency management records show no indication that warning sirens sounded before people ran for their lives from wildfires on Maui that killed multiple people and wiped out a historic town. Instead, officials sent alerts to mobile phones, televisions and radio stations — but widespread power and cellular outages may have limited their reach.
© AP Photo / Rick Bowmer
Speaking on Hawaiian television, Hawaii Governor Josh Green warned residents returning to their homes that Lahaina was “a devastated zone.”
“They will see destruction like they’ve not ever seen in their lives. Everyone please brace themselves as they go back,” Green said.
Thousands of tourists at nearby resorts have already been evacuated from Maui or worked with airlines to book flights home, but thousands of residents now require aid.
Wildfire wreckage is seen Thursday, Aug. 10, 2023, in Lahaina, Hawaii. The search of the wildfire wreckage on the Hawaiian island of Maui on Thursday revealed a wasteland of burned out homes and obliterated communities as firefighters battled the deadliest blaze in the U.S. in recent years.
© AP Photo / Rick Bowmer
Maui Food Bank Executive Director Richard Yust told US media that donations were urgently needed, especially since sea-based resupply was a two-week steam away.
"We're having a mass influx of people needing food assistance," he said.
Yust said the agency was “providing immediate relief just to kind of calm people's nerves and make sure they have what they need as far as food, water, essentials, cleaning products, hygiene products. We're providing all of that currently to those folks. But it will be a long time. It's so tragic, and these folks have generations (that) have been in line,"
"It's really sad so many people have lost everything. This is going to take a long time to, obviously either be rebuilt or - and that's going to be months, years, who knows how long. So we are gearing up for the long haul,” he added.
Green spoke with US President Joe Biden on Friday as well, updating him on the situation in Maui and thanking him for support coming from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and other agencies. On Thursday night, Biden issued a disaster declaration for the state after having erroneously told reporters earlier in the week that he had already done so.
