Hawaii fires: death toll stands at 96 as hundreds remain missing

The death toll from the Maui wildfires stood at 96 on Monday, the worst recorded in the US in more than 100 years.

Officials said the number of dead could grow. Hundreds remained missing. Firefighters battled flare-ups as searches of the destroyed town of Lahaina continued.

“I do expect the numbers to rise,” the governor of Hawaii, Josh Green, told reporters.

Lahaina has now seen the largest number of deaths from a wildfire in the US since 1918, when 453 people were killed in the Cloquet fire in Minnesota and Wisconsin, according to the National Fire Protection Association.

The worst death toll from a US wildfire, according to the NFPA, is 1,152, from the Peshtigo fire in Wisconsin in 1871.

Climate scientists say such deadly wildfires will become more common as the climate crisis worsens.

Lahaina has recorded the worst death toll in modern times. In 2018, the Camp fire in California killed 86.

The NFPA list of costliest wildfires includes death tolls of 44 (2017) and 31 (2020) from other California fires.

In Hawaii, the fire that swept into Lahaina last Tuesday was fueled by dry conditions and hurricane winds offshore. It destroyed nearly every building in the town of 13,000, leaving a grid of gray rubble wedged between the blue ocean and green mountain slopes.

“There’s very little left there,” Green told reporters.

Late on Sunday, Maui county said two fires had not yet been completely contained, including the one that demolished Lahaina.

Green said he would investigate the emergency response to the fires, after sirens meant to warn residents did not sound.

“We’ll know soon whether or not they did enough to get those sirens going,” Green said.

Authorities warned that toxic byproducts of the fire may remain, including in drinking water. Those whose homes were destroyed would be housed in hotels and vacation rentals, officials said.

With more than 2,200 structures damaged or destroyed and more than 2,100 acres burned, the Federal Emergency Management Agency estimated the cost to rebuild Lahaina at $5.5bn.

There was a minor controversy when the talkshow host Oprah Winfrey visited a shelter on Maui.

Amid reports that Winfrey was turned away, the county of Maui said the celebrity “was able to visit our shelter, and we thank her for instructing media journalists and camera crews to remain outside.

“We welcome Oprah to continue to uplift our community’s spirit and give her aloha to victims of the tragic disaster.”

Winfrey’s visit was “truly heartwarming”, the county said.

It is not uncommon for shelters aiding those affected by disasters to bar journalists – visual ones in particular – from entering, though sometimes they do make exceptions and limit what can be shown.

The former president Barack Obama, who was born in Hawaii, appeared in a video promoting a TV fundraising effort.

“As someone who grew up in Hawaii, someone who has taken my family to enjoy the incredible beauty of [Maui] and the hospitality of the people of Lahaina, we now find ourselves mourning the lives that are lost,” Obama told KHON-TV.

Saying “thoughts and prayers are not enough”, Obama asked the public to help the American Red Cross and Malama Maui “provide direct support to people who are desperately in need.

“If all of us, the Ohana [family], pull together and do as much as we can to give back to an island and a town and people who have given us so much, I’m absolutely confident that Lahaina and Maui and those families are going to be able to rebuild.”

Reuters and Associated Press contributed reporting