Wildfires on Maui and the Big Island of Hawaii have killed at least 55 people, forced thousands of residents and tourists to evacuate and devastated the historic town of Lahaina, but the death toll is expected to rise Friday as rescue teams search through the charred ruins of the historic resort town where hundreds of people are considered missing, reports News.ro with reference to Reuters.

Specially trained dogs from California and Washington state will assist people in the difficult task of removing human remains from the rubble while firefighters work to extinguish even hotter and smaller fires.

The rapidly spreading inferno has devastated the historic city of Lahaina, once the capital of the Kingdom of Hawaii. The city turned into piles of ruins. More than 1,000 buildings burned, cars burned, thousands of people were left homeless.

Governor Josh Green called the fires “catastrophic” and possibly the largest natural disaster in the history of the state of Hawaii. Residents of the historic town of Lahaina said they lost their homes and what remained of local history was reduced to “ashes and ashes.”

Firefighters continue to battle the blaze, officials said, and nearly 15,000 tourists boarded planes and flew out of Maui on Thursday.

The fires started on the island on Tuesday, fueled by gusts of wind caused by the approach of the hurricane.

President Joe Biden declared a state of “major disaster”.

Hell for people

In addition to searching for the missing, officials have developed a plan to house the homeless in hotels and tourist rentals. Currently, there are four shelters for victims operating on the island.

The authorities also faced the widespread problem of lack of electricity and water in the community. As of Friday morning, approximately 11,000 homes and businesses were without power, according to Poweroutage.us.

Witnesses to the disaster that befell Lahaina spoke of the horror they experienced when, without warning, the fire destroyed the town in a matter of minutes. Some escaped the flames only by jumping into the Pacific Ocean.

Questions remain as to whether a system of warning sirens designed to alert residents of danger most likely did not sound. Maui County Mayor Richard Bissen told NBC’s “Today” program that he didn’t know if the sirens had gone off, but said the fire spread extremely quickly because of the hurricane’s strong gusts in the southern Hawaiian archipelago.

Thousands of tourists and local residents were evacuated from the western part of the island of Maui, where about 166,000 people live year-round. Some hid on the island, others on the neighboring island of Oahu. Tourists camped out at Kahului Airport, waiting for flights home.

Many people suffered burns and smoke inhalation. “It was so hot around me, I felt like my shirt was going to catch on fire,” said Nicoangelo Knickerbocker, a 21-year-old Lahaina resident who was in one of four emergency shelters open on the island. Knickerbocker heard cars and a gas station explode and soon fled the city with his father, taking only the family dog ​​with him. “It sounded like there was a war,” the young man testified.

Governor Josh Green said the scale of the disaster would surpass that of 1960, a year after Hawaii became a US state, when a tsunami killed 61 people on Hawaii’s Big Island. “It will take many years to rebuild Lahaina,” Green said at a press conference.

Cultural values ​​were burned by the flames

Lahaina, the former capital of the Kingdom of Hawaii, is known for its historical and cultural significance and is therefore an important tourist destination.

According to local media, the 200-year-old Viola Church was among the structures destroyed by the fire. The landmark was the center of Christianity on Maui and the burial place of the first members of the royal family, according to the church’s website.

The fate of some other Lahaina treasures remains unclear. A 200-foot-tall banyan tree that marks the site of the 19th-century palace of Hawaiian King Kamehameha III was still standing after the fire swept through the city, although some of its branches appeared charred, a Reuters witness said.

The second largest bill for insurers

According to catastrophe modeling firm Karen Clark &​​​​​​​​Company (KCC), the total amount of insured property losses from the Maui wildfires will be the second largest in the history of the state of Hawaii.

The fire will be the second most powerful after Hurricane Iniki, which hit Hawaii in 1992.

According to the company’s estimates, the total burning area is about 900 hectares, and there are about 3.5 thousand buildings in the perimeter of the fire.

Insurance broker Aon said the extreme destruction of homes, businesses and other structures in Lahaina is likely to result in economic and insurance losses in the hundreds of millions of dollars. In addition, a significant disruption to Maui tourism, which used to be an important part of the local economy, is expected in the near future.

How fires started

The causes of the fires, which started on Tuesday evening, have not yet been determined. However, the National Weather Service issued a high wind and dry weather warning for the Hawaiian Islands — conditions conducive to wildfires — and canceled it late Wednesday night.

According to the US Forest Service, nearly 85 percent of wildfires in the US are caused by humans.

Natural causes include lightning and volcanic activity.

Less than 1 percent of fires in Hawaii are caused by natural causes, according to Elizabeth Pickett, co-executive director of the Hawaii Wildfire Protection Organization.

There are six active volcanoes in the Hawaiian Islands, including one on Maui.

This summer’s record-breaking heat has fueled wildfires in Europe and western Canada. Climate change caused by the use of fossil fuels has led to more frequent and more severe extreme weather events, scientists say.

What causes wildfires in Hawaii

Strong winds from Hurricane Dora, which is passing hundreds of kilometers southwest of the Hawaiian Islands in the Pacific Ocean, were fanning the flames in the US state, officials said.

In addition to Dora, a low pressure system to the west near Japan is also contributing to strong and sustained winds.

Dry vegetation is also a factor in the rapid spread of flames.

The spread of native wild plants, such as sea grass, into former farmland and forests has led to the accumulation of large quantities of small flammable materials that increase the risk and severity of fires. According to Pickett, this grass makes up 26 percent of Hawaii’s vegetation.

Where are the fires? How well they are controlled

The fires caused widespread destruction in Lahaina, a resort town of about 13,000 on the northwestern island of Maui that was once a whaling center and the capital of the Kingdom of Hawaii and now attracts 2 million tourists a year.

As of Thursday evening, the Lahaina fire was 80 percent contained, while the Puleh fire, burning to the east, was 70 percent contained. Maui County said there was no assessment of the fire in the mountain center of the island’s eastern massif in the Upcountry.

The fires also burned part of Insula Mare.

Hawaii is an archipelago located approximately 3,200 km west of the US mainland. It consists of eight main islands, including Hawaii, known as the Big Island. The island of Maui is located northwest of the island of Hawaii.