The Maui wildfires have claimed six lives and left 20 people gravely injured in an ‘unprecedented’ disaster for Hawaii. Some 4,000 tourists are also understood to be stuck on the island desperate to leave before the fires spread any further. They are all expected to flock to the Kahului Airport, where 2,000 people slept overnight, in the coming days.
The town of Lahaina is all but destroyed. Devastating videos showed desperate residents jumping into the harbor to avoid the flames last night. Power remains out for thousands of Hawaiians, and the fires are ongoing.
Overnight, the fires downed cell towers, wiping out 911 services and making it impossible for many residents to access the internet or communicate. Gov. Josh Green – who was in Boston at the time of the fires – is now on route back to the islands. He is due to arrive at midnight.
‘We have suffered a terrible disaster in the form of a wildfire that has spread widely as a result of hurricane-force winds in the region and underlying drought conditions. Maui and the Big Island both experienced significant fires.
‘Much of Lāhainā on Maui has been destroyed and hundreds of local families have been displaced.’ Devastating aerial video shows the extent of the damage in Lahaina, where thousands of locals fled in the dead of the night to escape being trapped.
Claire Kent, who was among those who took to the water in boats, said she had lost ‘everything’. ‘I am out of Lahaina, safe with a few friends in Waiehu. My home is gone, my town is gone, my job is gone. We lost everything. ‘This is the scariest thing I have ever experienced. So incredibly devastated.’
Multiple burn patients were today flown out of Maui to Honolulu to be cared for as the ‘apocalyptic’ blazes rage on. The fires, fanned by strong winds from Hurricane Dora, have burned structures, forced evacuations and caused power outages in several communities.
The worst of the fires is on Maui. One is torching parts of northern Wailea – where tourist hotels like the Four Seasons and Hilton scatter the beach – and another has destroyed the town of Lahaina.
A worker at the Four Seasons Wailea told DailyMail.com that the resort has not been affected aside from ‘some air quality issues’. The $990-a-night hotel is where the first season of The White Lotus was filmed.
In Lahaina, a town of around 12,000 people, frantic locals jumped into the water in the harbor to escape the flames. Twelve people were rescued from the waves by boats.
