Lahaina

Hawaii's governor and mayor invited tourists back to the west side of Maui months after the Aug. 8 fire killed at least 100 people and destroyed more than 2,000 buildings.

A growing body of research shows that wildfires leave a trail of dangerous chemicals behind.

Crews in Hawaii have all but finished searching for victims of the deadliest U.S. wildfire in more than a century, authorities said on Tuesday, August 29, 2023, and it is unclear how many people perished.

It was Tuesday, Aug. 8, and in the town of Lahaina in West Maui, people were screaming and running as the sky rained embers. 

Across Maui, community hubs like these have cropped up with dizzying speed in the days since wildfires swept through the island on Aug. 8, killing at least 99, destroying more than 2,200 buildings and displacing thousands.

Authorities in Hawaii pleaded with relatives of those missing after the deadliest U.S. wildfire in more than a century to come forward and give DNA samples, saying the low number provided so far threatens to hinder efforts to identify any remains discovered in the ashes.

Trying to find this many missing people presents huge challenges for officials who are trying to determine how many of those perished and how many may have made it to safety but haven't checked in.

President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden are traveling to Maui on Monday to comfort survivors of the devastating wildfires that ripped through the western part of the Hawaiian island earlier this month, as his administration responds to the devastation whose full scope is still unknown.

Survivors of deadly wildfires on Maui contended with intermittent power and unreliable cell service as they sought help rebuilding their lives. Experts, meanwhile, labored to find the dead and identify them.

The blazes that consumed most of the historic town of Lahaina are already the deadliest in the U.S. in more than a century

As Hawaii residents mourned those killed in ferocious wildfires, officials warned that the full human and environmental toll was not yet known and the recovery only just beginning.

Maui residents who made desperate escapes from oncoming flames, some on foot, asked why Hawaii’s famous emergency warning system didn’t alert them as fires raced toward their homes.

Thousands of Hawaii residents raced to escape homes on Maui as blazes swept across the island, destroying parts of a centuries-old town and killing at least 36 people in one of the deadliest U.S. wildfires in recent years.

A dangerous mix of conditions appears to have combined to make the wildfires blazing a path of destruction in Hawaii particularly damaging, including high winds, low humidity and dry vegetation. And climate change.

Honolulu Emergency Services Department spokesperson Shayne Enright told The Associated Press that the department has taken in burn patients from Maui but can’t confirm the number.