Maui fires live updates: Emergency chief resigns following backlash over wildfire response as 10 victims identified

GoFundMe has created a section of its website dedicated to verified funds for those who died in the Maui wildfires and those who are in need of assistance.

The page includes a section for memorials that serve as fundraisers for the families of victims who perished in the wildfires.

Below that is a section for general individuals, families and businesses affected by the wildfires.

All of the funds posted to the page have been verified by GoFundMe’s Trust and Safety team.

On Hawaii’s Emergency Management Agency website, it indicates that their outdoor siren system can be used for hurricanes, dam breaches, flooding, wildfires, volcanic eruptions, terrorist threats, hazardous material incidents and more.

Despite this, both Governor Josh Green and Maui County Emergency Management Agency administrator Herman Andaya say the siren would not have been useful if it was sounded before the fires.

Both Mr Green and Mr Andaya said the siren is advertised as being used almost exclusively for tsunamis – especially for beachside neighbourhoods and towns.

Mr Green said when he first moved to Hawaii he was always told, “If you hear a siren it’s a tsunami you go to high ground.”

That single-minded approach to the sirens has proven dangerous after the Maui wildfires. Mr Green said going forward they are going to find new ways to keep the public informed about incoming disasters.

“We’re performing a comprehensive review to find out what the safest and most effective, science-based way is to protect people,” Mr Green told reporters.

August is part of Hawaii’s typical dry season when parts of the island experience abnormal to severe droughts.

Since the beginning of August, most of Maui has been under an “abnormally dry” level of drought, according to the US Drought Monitor.

But beginning on Tuesday, 8 August, a portion of Maui escalated to a “severe drought” level making the area more susceptible to wildfires.

Though the islands are no stranger to some wildfires, the number of fires has increased exponentially over the past century due to human activity and an increase in invasive, flammable grasses, according to the Hawaii Wildfire Management Organization (HWMO).

“Nonnative grasslands and shrublands now cover nearly one-quarter of Hawaii’s total land area and, together with a warming, drying climate and year-round fire season, greatly increase the incidence of larger fires,” the HWMO wrote in a factsheet.

The invasive grasses, which grew tall during the wet season, quickly dried out during the dry season – making them extremely flammable.

The dry vegetation combined with the drought conditions made for the perfect environment for wildfires.

But what may have caused the explosion in wildfire conditions is the strong winds brought on by Hurricane Dora, a Category 5 hurricane located several hundred miles off the coast of Hawaii.

As wildfires ravaged the Maui community of Lahaina, one of the victims died protecting his friend’s golden retriever.

In what officials have dubbed the deadliest US blaze in a century, 68-year-old Franklin Trejos had attempted to shield Sam, the golden retriever, from the deadly flames. The dog belonged to retired fire captain Geoff Bogar and his wife Shannon Weber-Bogar, Trejos’ friends of nearly 35 years.

Mr Bogar told the Associated Press that he and Trejos had decided to stay behind in an effort to save Mr Bogar’s house as the fires grew on 7 August. Although Mr Bogar says that they both eventually decided to flee the following afternoon, only the retired captain made it back.

Authorities discovered Trejos’ bones in the backseat of his car lying on top of the remains of Mr Bogar’s three-year-old golden retriever. He reportedly died trying to protect the young dog.

In some situations, dental work, prosthetics, surgical implants, fingerprints, tattoos or other body markings can reveal a person’s identity. But the heat and power of a wildfire can destroy these clues, and dental and medical records sometimes are unavailable or difficult to track down.

An intense fire also can leave remains too damaged for DNA extraction, though there have been scientific strides. New York City, notably, has retested fragmentary remains of 9/11 victims as techniques evolved over the years and created new prospects for reading genetic code diminished by fire, sunlight, bacteria and more.

“What you typically expect in a wildfire is that you’re going to have a range, and there are going to be some that are quite straightforward and some that are more challenging,” Selden said.

Ultimately, the vast majority of the Paradise fire victims were identifiable via DNA, he said.

Getting and analyzing a victim’s genetic material isn’t the only hurdle. Authorities need something for comparison — a sample from the person when alive or, often, from their relations.

“There is something people can do: Their close relatives should donate their cheek swabs,” Selden said. Maui officials have been urging likewise.

The American Red Cross is working with authorities to collect samples from family members and is helping them navigate the bureaucracy of making identifications, Red Cross official Brad Kieserman said.

HOW LONG MIGHT THIS TAKE?

It took months to make positive identifications of some of the 85 Paradise fire victims and notify their relatives. After wildfires killed 24 people in northern California’s Sonoma County the year before, most were identified within the first month, but the sheriff’s office has said it took two months to finish the process.

The hijacked-plane terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, killed nearly 3,000 people at New York’s World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a Pennsylvania field. The collapse of the trade center’s burning twin towers left a vast number of tiny human remains amid ashes and debris. About 1,100 victims have yet to have any remains identified.

The challenge is formidable: identifying the remains of more than 100 victims as agonized loved ones yearn for information about those missing in Maui after the United States’ deadliest wildfire in more than a century.

It is a painstaking process, and one that other communities have endured following disasters and mass casualties. The advent of DNA technology and subsequent advances have provided powerful tools. But finding remains, zeroing in on genetic material or other clues and amassing the information needed to get a match still takes time — if certainty comes at all.

As Maui Police Chief John Pelletier said this week when asked about the death toll: “You want it fast … We’re going to do it right.”

Here’s a look at how the work of identification unfolds.

As of Thursday afternoon, the toll stood at 111, though the search continues, and Gov. Josh Green has warned scores more could be found. Maui County said nine victims have been identified. Officials have released five names while trying to reach families of the other four, but some other names have emerged from relatives.

HOW IS THE SEARCH BEING CONDUCTED?

Dozens of search crews and cadaver dogs went through devastated areas this week. The federal government said it dispatched coroners, pathologists, technicians, X-ray units and other equipment to identify victims and process remains.

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services official Jonathan Greene said the work stood to be “ very, very difficult ” and called for patience, as have the police chief and others.

Rapid DNA-testing machines that were used after a 2018 blaze that largely destroyed Paradise, California, also are being put to work in Maui. The instruments, roughly the size of a large computer printer or microwave oven, were developed a decade or so ago and designed for use in the field. By automating a lot of steps that traditionally have been done manually in labs, they can produce a DNA profile in two hours, said Dr. Richard Selden, the founder and chief scientist of manufacturer ANDE Corp.

But a DNA fingerprint isn’t all it takes to make an identification.

Over in Wahiawa, a large brush fire that broke out on Wednesday afternoon continues to burn.

The fire is now 50 percent contained but has so far burned around 540 acres in an area close to the Kulaniloko birthing stones area, according to officials.

No homes have been destroyed or evacuated.

Three homeless people were moved from the area for their own safety, said officials.

The blazes currently devastating Maui and the Big Island in Hawaii already constitute the state’s worst natural disaster since 1960 – as at least 67 people are confirmed dead, thousands of residents and tourists have been forced to evacuate and the picturesque and historic beach resort of Lahaina has been destroyed.

What’s more, the tragedy also already represents America’s second-deadliest wildfire outbreak of the last 100 years, with only the Camp Fire that struck California in 2018 surpassing the current Hawaiian death toll, which is still rising and could yet surpass it.

That brush fire five years ago killed 88 people and did $20.2bn-worth of damage.

This time round, it is too early to begin to calculate the cost of the destruction wrought across the Pacific island chain, as firefighters are still battling to bring the conflagration under control, but the latest crisis could ultimately beat that unwanted record too.

What makes the horror currently unfolding all the more disturbing is that wildfires were regarded as uncommon in Hawaii until relatively recently, with those that did break out usually attributed to eruptions from one of the archipelago’s six active volcanoes or to lightning strikes.

The Independent’s Joe Sommerlad delves into the history of Hawaii’s wildfires: