Maui’s wildfires have killed at least 55 people, but that figure is expected to rise as the grim search of the interior of buildings in the charred ruins of Lahaina begins.

Media reports say around 1,000 people are missing, and while emergency officials believe many of those are simply unaccounted for in the smoke and chaos, they also admit the ultimate death toll is anyone’s guess.

The inferno reduced the picturesque resort town to piles of smouldering debris as it tore through a thousand buildings and left thousands homeless.

Cadaver dogs from California and Washington state will assist in the grim task of recovering human remains from the ruins on Friday as firefighters work to extinguish hot spots and smaller fires.

“Understand this: Lahaina Town is hallowed, sacred ground right now,” Maui Police Chief John Pelletier said, referring to human remains that have yet to be recovered.

“We have to get them out.”

Residents of Lahaina are expected to be allowed back into their homes today, Hawaii Governor Josh Green said Friday local time, CNN reported.

“They will see destruction like they’ve not ever seen in their lives.”

The fire was 80 per cent contained as of Thursday evening local time, officials said.

The Pulehu fire, burning to the east, was 70 per cent contained.

There was no estimate for the Upcountry fire in the centre of the eastern mass of the island, Maui County said.

Plan for the homeless

In addition to searching for those still missing, officials were drafting a plan to put the newly homeless up in hotels and tourist rental properties.

The island currently has four shelters in operation for the displaced.
Authorities also were dealing with widespread power and water issues across the community.

As of Friday morning local time, some 11,000 homes and businesses remained without power, according to Poweroutage.us.

Thousands of tourists and locals were evacuated from the western side of Maui, which has a year-round population of about 166,000, with some taking shelter on the island or on the neighbouring island of Oahu.

Tourists camped out in the Kahului Airport, waiting for flights back home.

‘Explosions everywhere’

“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.”

Many more people suffered burns, smoke inhalation and other injuries.

“It was so hot all around me, I felt like my shirt was about to catch on fire,” 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.

Some people fled the flames by jumping into the Pacific Ocean.

Among them was Vixay Phonxaylinkham, a tourist from California, who said he was trapped in a rental car with his wife and children as the fires approached, forcing the family to abandon the car and take refuge in the water.

“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 flotation.

Witnesses to the conflagration that hit Lahaina spoke of their terror as the blaze consumed a town in what seemed to be minutes to many of them.

Little warning for many residents

Hawaii emergency management records show no indication that warning sirens sounded before people ran for their lives in Lahaina.

Instead, officials sent alerts to mobile phones, televisions and radio stations – but widespread power and cellular outages may have limited their reach.

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 survivors said in interviews that they didn’t hear any sirens or receive a warning that gave them enough time to prepare and only realised they were in danger when they saw flames or heard explosions nearby.

Thomas Leonard, a 74-year-old retired mailman from centuries-old Lahaina, didn’t know about the fire until he smelled smoke.

Power and cellphone service had both gone out earlier on Tuesday, 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.

Fuelled by a dry summer and strong winds from a passing hurricane, at least three wildfires erupted on Maui this week, racing through parched brush covering the island.

The most serious one left Lahaina a grid of gray, ashen rubble, wedged between the blue ocean and lush green slopes.

Years to rebuild

Governor Josh Green said the scope of the disaster would surpass that of 1960, one year after Hawaii became a US state, when a tsunami killed 61 people on the Big Island of Hawaii.

“It’s going to take many years to rebuild Lahaina,” Green said at a news conference.

Lahaina’s 200-year-old Waiola Church was among the structures destroyed by the fire, local media reported.

The landmark was the focal point of Christianity on Maui and the burial site of early members of the Kingdom of Hawaii’s royal family, according to the church’s website.

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

The historic 18-metre-tall banyan tree marking the spot where Hawaiian King Kamehameha III’s 19th-century palace stood was still standing, although some of its boughs appeared charred, according to a Reuters witness.

The Lahaina fire was one of three major wildfires on Maui, all of them still burning, that were fuelled by dry conditions, a build-up of fuel and 100km/h gusts of wind.

Winds were forecast to ease to 10km/h on Friday as firefighters were to work to secure the perimeter of the wild land areas that burned Maui County.

— AAP

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