Six people were killed in the unprecedented wildfires that tore through the Hawaiian island of Maui overnight, authorities said.
The fires, fanned by strong winds from Hurricane Dora, destroyed businesses in the historic town of Lahaina, and left at least two dozen people injured, officials said at a press conference Wednesday. There have been 13 evacuations for three fires.
Rescuers with the US Coast Guard pulled a dozen people from the ocean water off Lahaina after they had dived in to escape smoke and flames. Burn patients have been flown to the island of Oahu, officials said.
In the video that has been circulating of a family escaping the fire storm, they saw someone down in the street, probably dead from smoke inhalation or burns. I suspect there’s a lot more people dead from the fire since it happened at night and burned through populated areas. Some people probably were injured from being in the ocean during a hurricane. This is a chaotic tragedy and more details will be available later.
It looked similar to the paradise fire which took a while before we ever had an accurate count since some people were burned quite heavily or even just basically what large bones are left when they aren’t completely burned and turned to ash by a fire.