Maui wildfires kill 53 as Hawaii foresees years-long recovery

Maui’s wildfires have killed at least 53 people and turned the resort town of Lahaina into smoldering ruins that will take many years and billions of dollars to rebuild, Hawaiian officials said on Thursday.

Thousands of people will need immediate housing, Hawaii Governor Josh Green told a news conference, and he estimated as many as 1,000 buildings were damaged or destroyed,

“It’s going to take many years to rebuild Lahaina,” Green said, as officials began to map out a plan to shelter the newly homeless in hotels and tourist rental properties.

“We’re going to need to house thousands of people,” Green said.

The fast-moving inferno caught the island of Maui off guard after at least three major fires broke out on Tuesday, cutting off the western side of the island. Some people fled the flames by jumping into the Pacific Ocean.

Thousands of tourists were trying to leave Maui, many of them camped in the airport waiting for flights.

Many more people suffered burns, smoke inhalation and other injuries. Search and rescue efforts continue, and thousands of people have fled into emergency shelters or left the island.

Vixay Phonxaylinkham, a tourist from Fresno, California, said he was trapped on Lahaina’s Front Street in a rental car with his wife and children as the fires approached, forcing the family to abandon the car and jump into the Pacific Ocean.

“We floated around four hours,” Phonxaylinkham said from the airport while awaiting a flight off the island, describing how they held onto pieces of wood for floatation.

“It was a vacation that turned into a nightmare. I heard explosions everywhere, I heard screaming, and some people didn’t make it. I feel so sad,” he said.

The death toll rose by 17 on Thursday to reach 53, Maui County said in a statement that also reported the Lahaina fire was 80% contained, as firefighters secured the perimeter of the wildland areas that burned.

The Pulehu fire, about 20 miles (30 km) east of Lahaina, was 70% contained. There was no estimate for the Upcountry fire in the center of the eastern mass of the island, Maui County said.

The Lahaina fire reduced entire neighborhoods to ashes on the western side of the island. Lahaina is one of Maui’s prime attractions, drawing 2 million tourists each year, or about 80% of the island’s visitors.

Tourists and locals alike fled with few or none of their belongings as the fire spread rapidly due to dry conditions, a buildup of fuels and strong winds.

“It was so hot all around me, I felt like my shirt was about to catch on fire,” said Nicoangelo Knickerbocker, a 21-year-old resident of Lahaina, said from one of the four emergency shelters opened on the island.

Knickerbocker heard cars and a gas station explode, and soon after fled the town with his father, bringing with them only the clothes they were wearing and the family dog.

“It sounded like a war was going on,” he said.

The fires were the worst disaster to befall Hawaii since 1960, one year after it became a U.S. state, when a tsunami killed 61 people.

The fate of some of Lahaina’s cultural treasures remains unclear. The historic 60-foot(18-meter)-tall banyan tree marking the spot where Hawaiian King Kamehameha III’s 19th-century palace stood was still standing, though some of its boughs appeared charred, according to a Reuters witness.