Tallying losses of deadly Maui wildfires still in early stages, officials say

Searchers with cadaver dogs have been going through the remains of buildings in the west Maui community of Lahaina, looking for victims of devastating wildfires on the Hawaiian island, as officials tally the loss of life and destruction of property.

The number of confirmed deaths rose to 93 over the weekend, according to Maui County, making it the deadliest U.S. wildfire in more than a century, surpassing the toll of a 2018 wildfire in northern California that left 85 dead.

Hawaii Gov. Josh Green said the toll is expected to continue to rise, noting that efforts to find and identify the dead were still in the early stages. 

"We want to brace people for that," he told reporters four days after a fast-moving fire levelled most of the historic beach town.

"It will certainly be the worst natural disaster that Hawaii ever faced," Green said, as he toured the damage on Lahaina's Front Street.

"We can only wait and support those who are living. Our focus now is to reunite people when we can and get them housing and get them health care. And then turn to rebuilding."

"The community is reeling right now," Nicholas Winfrey, president of Maui United Way told CBC News on Sunday, speaking from Wailuku.

In the last few days, Winfrey said, "it's been an explosion of individuals coming together in every form and fashion to try to support in any way they can."

"But really, in all honesty, it's devastation, it's moments of levity, it's toughness, but it's also the aloha spirit, which has been here longer than I have been here, of people coming together to do anything that they can to support those in need."

Many of the survivors took to Sunday church services, including Akanesi Vaa, 38, who said her family got stuck in traffic while trying to escape the flames.

Vaa, her husband and her children, aged 15, 13 and nine, resorted to fleeing on foot and jumping a fence to safety. Along the way, she said, an elderly woman pleading for help handed her a baby to care for. The woman and her husband were also able to make it over the fence.

"I think a lot of us needed to hear today's message," Vaa said after attending church at King's Cathedral in Kahului. "All these ashes are going to turn into beauty. I know Lahaina will come back 10 times stronger."

Scott Landis, pastor at Keawala'i Church, a United Church of Christ congregation in Makena, said an unusually large crowd of 100 people showed, nearly double what he would have expected on a typical Sunday in August.

"They were really listening. You could tell people were here, looking for a word of hope," Landis said.