Clearing operations can take up to 10 days to count the full death toll
Maui’s governor said rescue crews sorting through charred homes and vehicles in Hawaii find 10 to 20 victims each day.
The death toll has reached 96 and is likely to rise, making it the deadliest wildfire in US history in more than a century.
Gov. Josh Green told CBS that it could take up to 10 days to calculate the full death toll, adding that the fire has destroyed the entire city of Lahaina.
“There is nothing to see but destruction,” Green told CBS, the BBC’s US news partner, on Sunday.
He added that all residents of Lahaina, home to 12,000 people, may have fled or died in the fire, and confirmed that rescue teams were having difficulty identifying the identities of the people they found.
Lahaina officials say only 3 percent of the city has been searched so far with the help of dogs to find victims’ bodies.
A total of 10 dogs have been deployed by Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) search and rescue teams, CNN reported.
Many of them were dispatched from Southern California fire departments, officials told reporters.
FEMA Administrator Dean Cresswell declined to comment Monday on how long the search would take, calling the situation “extremely dangerous.”
“We want to use dogs to search for bodies because of the high temperatures and the dogs working for long periods of time,” said Cresswell, who participates in the daily White House press briefing from Hawaii.
Experts say dogs can be very effective at finding human remains, but they must rest and drink plenty of water during the search.
Police Chief Pelletier says only two of the 96 victims have so far been identified through DNA technology.
It’s still unclear what caused the fire, but winds from nearby Hurricane Dora helped extinguish the flames
At the start of the fire, more than 2,000 people were missing from the island of Maui.
Green said the number of missing is now at about 1,300 as people are able to communicate with each other after access to cell phone service improves.
Green added: “Our hearts would be massively broken if the number of victims rose any further. None of us believe it, but we are prepared to deal with any new numbers.”
Police Chief Pelletier encouraged those who have lost family members to provide DNA samples to aid in the search effort, and urged those who want to enter the city to be patient.
“When we find the bodies of our family and friends who died in this fire that melted the metal, we need to develop DNA to identify them,” he said.
According to Maui County officials, the deadly fire in Lahaina is still burning and 85 percent contained, and it is still unclear how the fire started, but winds from nearby Hurricane Dora helped start the fire, along with severe drought.
A class-action lawsuit was filed Saturday against Hawaii Electric, Hawaii’s largest utility, alleging the company’s power lines contributed to the wildfires.
The lawsuit alleges the company failed to shut down the stalled lines despite a National Weather Service forecast that warned Hawaii to be on wildfire alert.
Temporarily cutting off power to reduce fire risk is a tactic used in western US states where wildfires are common. In California, power lines are said to be responsible for half of the state’s most destructive wildfires.
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