People pulled from ocean after attempt to escape fires burning on Hawaiian island of Maui
Dani Anguiano
Unprecedented wildfires burned through the Hawaiian island of Maui overnight and are not yet under control.
At least six people have died and more than two dozen have been injured, according to authorities.
The fires, fanned by strong winds from Hurricane Dora, destroyed businesses in the historic town of Lahaina and rescuers with the US Coast Guard pulled a dozen people from the ocean water off the town after they dived in to escape smoke and flames.
More than 2,100 people spent the night in four shelters on the island. State officials said they did not want any visitors to come to Maui, and that current visitors should leave.
Lt. Gov. Sylvia Luke, who is serving as acting governor because Gov. Josh Green was out of state, said shelters are overflowing and resources are taxed. Thirty power lines are also down, leaving homes, hotels and shelters without electricity, the Associated Press reports.
The Lahaina fire is not yet under control, Bissen said, and officials have not determined what started the wildfires.
“I can tell you that we did not anticipate having this many fires simultaneously,” he said.
Key events
Here are images of some of the preparations being made for people injured or displaced by the fires on Maui, which as far as we know are still burning.
Maui Memorial Hospital has set up a triage centre to treat people injured in the fires:
Maui High School has been turned into a shelter for people displaced by the fires:
How did the disaster unfold?
Dani Anguiano
The fires appear to have burned first in vegetation and then rapidly spread into populated areas as wind gusts of over 60mph rocked the island. The conflagration swept into coastal Lahaina with alarming speed and ferocity, blazing through intersections and leaping across wooden buildings in a town center that dates to the 1700s and is on the National Register of Historic Places.
Residents raced on to crowded roads, some of which were blocked with flaming debris. The US Coast Guard on Tuesday rescued 14 people, including two children, who had jumped into the water to escape.
“This was a classic wildland urban interface fire where there was a vegetation fire but it moved into an urban area and started burning structure to structure,” said the climate scientist Daniel Swain.
This video taken by a Maui resident shows the damage done by the fires to the town of Lahaina.
Just to note: the video appears to be real, but has not been fully verified by the Guardian.
This image shows flames moving down Front street, the main shopping street in the historical town of Lahaina:
Here is Hawaii Governor Josh Green’s full statement. It is currently nearing 3pm on Maui. Governor Green is expected to speak this evening.
What we know so far
Here is what we know about the fires burning on Hawaii’s Maui island:
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Six people have been killed in the unprecedented wildfires that tore through the Hawaiian island of Maui overnight, authorities said. Two dozen people are injured, and authorities are making preparations for as many as 4,000 people displaced by the fires.
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Three separate wildfires have been burning on the island of Maui, including one that destroyed much of the historic town of Lahaina. Lahaina holds strong cultural significance. It was the capital of the Hawaiian Kingdom under Kings Kamehameha II and III from 1820 to 1845, and served as a main port for the North Pacific whaling fleet, according to the National Park Service. Historic buildings along Lahaina’s popular Front Street were “charred and flattened skeletons on Wednesday,” the Associated Press reported, with “powerlines draped across roadways”.
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Rescuers with the US Coast Guard pulled a dozen people from the ocean water off Lahaina after they dived in to escape smoke and flames.
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US president Joe Biden said he had “ordered all available Federal assets on the Islands to help with response.” Biden expressed condolences “to the families of those who lost loved ones in the wildfires in Maui” and said his and his wife Jill Biden’s “prayers are with those who have seen their homes, businesses, and communities destroyed.”
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Although Maui airport is still operating, an estimated 2,000 travellers were sheltering at Kahului Airport on Maui early Wednesday morning, according to Maui county’s Facebook page.
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Hurricane Dora, which passed south of the islands this week, ihas contributed to the severity of the fires by exacerbating a low-pressure system and increasing the difference in air pressure to create “unusually strong trade winds,” said Genki Kino, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service office in Honolulu.
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The County of Maui and other local government officials have turned to Facebook and Twitter to warn residents that the 911 system was down on parts of the island, the Associated Press reports, and that they should call police departments directly if needed.
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Several burn patients from Maui were being treated at Straub Medical Center in Honolulu, the hospital has said in a statement. The facility has the only specialised burn unit in Hawaii.
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Hawaii Governor Josh Green is expected to be back in Hawaii on Wednesday evening, after returning home from a scheduled trip. Green has been in contact with the White House, and is preparing to request emergency federal assistance sometime in the next two days, once he has a better idea of the damage, his office said in a news release. Hundreds of families have been displaced and much of Lahaina on Maui has been destroyed, Green said in the statement.
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Officials have released very little information about the scope of damage caused by the wildfires, but satellite images from NASA, seen by the Associated Press, appear to show active flames throughout much of the historic town of Lahaina. Another Maui wildfire was burning near the town of Kihei.
Officials preparing for people displaced by fires
Officials are preparing the Hawaii Convention Centre in Honolulu to accommodate up to 4,000 people displaced by the wildfires that swept across parts of Maui, the Associated Press reports.
James Tokioka, director of the Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism, said the centre is not just for tourists, but also for locals.
“Local people have lost everything,” he said. “They’ve lost their house, they’ve lost their animals.”
Climate change not only increases the fire risk by driving up temperatures, but also makes stronger hurricanes more likely. In turn, those storms could fuel stronger wind events like the one behind the Maui fires.
Strong winds from Hurricane Dora have helped spread the fires burning on Maui, and made extinguishing them much more difficult.
“There’s an increasing trend in the intensity of hurricanes worldwide, in part because warm air holds more water,” Erica Fleishman, Erica Fleishman, director of the Oregon Climate Change Research Institute at Oregon State University, told the Associated Press.
“In addition to that, sea levels are rising worldwide, so you tend to get more severe flooding from the storm surge when a hurricane makes landfall.”
While climate change can’t be said to directly cause singular events, experts say, the impact extreme weather is having on communities is undeniable.
“These kinds of climate change-related disasters are really beyond the scope of things that we’re used to dealing with,” said Kelsey Copes-Gerbitz, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of British Columbia’s faculty of forestry.
“It’s these kind of multiple, interactive challenges that really lead to a disaster.”
Richard Olsten, a helicopter pilot for a tour company, flew over the fire site on Wednesday and said Lahaina “looked like a bomb went off.”
“It’s horrifying. I’ve flown here 52 years and I’ve never seen anything come close to that. We had tears in our eyes, the other pilots on board and the mechanics and me,” he said, recalling even the boats in the harbour were burned.
“We never thought we’d experience anything like this in our whole life,” he said.
Why is Lahaina historically significant?
Lahaina holds strong cultural significance, AP explains. It was the capital of the Hawaiian Kingdom under Kings Kamehameha II and III from 1820 to 1845, and served as a main port for the North Pacific whaling fleet, according to the National Park Service.
Historic buildings along Lahaina’s popular Front Street were “charred and flattened skeletons on Wednesday,” the AP reports, with “powerlines draped across roadways”.
“We got out in the nick of time yesterday,” Lahaina resident Keʻeaumoku Kapu told AP. He was at the cultural centre he runs in the historic section of town Tuesday, tying down loose objects in the wind, when his wife showed up at around 4pm and said they needed to evacuate. “Right at that time, things got crazy. The wind started picking up,” he said.
