The island which is part of the US state of Hawaii was caught off guard by at least three major fires which broke out on Tuesday evening, cutting off the western part of the island and the historic town of Lahaina, where more than 270 structures were destroyed or damaged.
Many more people suffered burns, smoke inhalations and other injuries. Search and rescue efforts continue and thousands of people have fled to emergency shelters or left the island.
The wildfires took most Lahaina 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 camped out in the airport waiting for flights.
Vixay Phonxaylinkham, a tourist from Fresno, Calif., said he was stuck on Front Street in Lahaina in a rental car with his wife and children as the fires approached, forcing the family to abandon the car and to jump into the Pacific Ocean.
“We floated about four hours,” Phonxaylinkham said from the airport while waiting for a flight off the island, describing how they clung to pieces of wood to float.
“It was a vacation that turned into a nightmare. I heard explosions everywhere, I heard screams, and some people didn’t survive. I feel so sad,” he said .
The death toll rose by 17 on Thursday to 53, Maui County said in a statement that also reported the Lahaina Fire was 80% contained as firefighters secured the perimeter of wilderness areas that have burned.
The Pulehu fire, about 30 km east of Lahaina, was 70 percent contained. There was no estimate of the fire in the backcountry in the center of the island’s eastern mass, Maui County said.
The Lahaina Fire burned down entire neighborhoods on the west side of the island. Lahaina is one of Maui’s top attractions, attracting 2 million tourists each year, or about 80% of the island’s visitors.
Tourists and locals fled with little or no belongings as the fire spread rapidly due to dry conditions, fuel buildup and high winds.
“It was so hot all around me, I felt like my shirt was about to catch fire,” 21-year-old Lahaina resident Nicoangelo Knickerbocker said from one of four shelters. emergencies open on the island.
Knickerbocker heard cars and a gas station explode, and soon after fled town with his father, bringing with them only the clothes they were wearing and the family dog.
“It looked like a war was going on,” he said.
Most of the roughly 400 people evacuated to the War Memorial shelter on Thursday morning had arrived in shock, with a “blank stare”, said Dr. Gerald Tariao Montano, a pediatrician who volunteered to work six hours Wednesday evening.
“Some have not fully understood that they have lost everything,” he said, pleading for donations of clothing, supplies, food, formula and diapers.
The fires were Hawaii’s worst disaster since 1960, a year after it became a US state, when a tsunami killed 61 people.
The fate of some of Lahaina’s cultural treasures remains uncertain. The historic 18-meter-tall banyan tree marking the spot where the 19th-century palace of Hawaiian King Kamehameha III stood was still standing, though some of its branches appeared charred, according to a Reuters witness.
“We will have to rebuild all of Lahaina, I believe,” Governor Green told KHON 2 television.
US President Joe Biden has 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 were fueling them.
Wildfires occur every year in Hawaii, according to Thomas Smith, professor of environmental geography 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 has also experienced at least two major bushfires.
Scenes of fiery devastation have become all too familiar elsewhere in the world this summer. Wildfires, often caused by record heat, have 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 have sent clouds of smoke across large swathes of the United States, polluting the air.
Human-induced climate change, driven by the use of fossil fuels, is increasing the frequency and intensity of these extreme weather events, say scientists, after long warning that countries must cut emissions to avoid catastrophe climatic.
