Hawaii fires: tourists warned against travelling to Maui in wake of disaster

Officials in Hawaii have urged tourists to avoid traveling to Maui, as many hotels prepared to house evacuees and first responders on the island after wildfires killed more than 90 people and destroyed hundreds of homes.

About 46,000 residents and visitors have flown out of Kahului Airport in West Maui since the scale of the devastation in the historic town of Lahaina became clear on Wednesday, according to the Hawaii Tourism Authority.

“In the weeks ahead, the collective resources and attention of the federal, state and county government, the West Maui community, and the travel industry must be focused on the recovery of residents who were forced to evacuate their homes and businesses,” the agency said in a statement late Saturday. Tourists are encouraged to visit Hawaii’s other islands.

Governor Josh Green said 500 hotels rooms will be made available for locals who have been displaced. An additional 500 hotel rooms will be set aside for workers from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Some hotels will carry on with normal business to help preserve jobs and sustain the local economy, Green said.

The state wants to work with Airbnb to make sure that rental homes can be made available for locals. Green hopes that the company will be able to provide three- to nine-month rentals for those who have lost homes.

On Saturday, Hawaiian native and Hollywood actor Jason Momoa also warned tourists against travelling to the island.

“Maui is not the place to have your vacation right now,” he wrote on Instagram. “Do not convince yourself that your presence is needed on an island that is suffering this deeply.

Volunteers unload supplies to Maui towns affected by the wildfires. Photograph: Yuki Iwamura/AFP/Getty Images

As the death toll around Lahaina climbed to 93, authorities warned that the effort to find and identify the dead was still in its early stages. The blaze is already the deadliest US wildfire in more than a century.

Crews working with dogs have covered just 3% of the search area, Maui Police Chief John Pelletier said Saturday.

“We’ve got an area that we have to contain that is at least 5 square miles, and it is full of our loved ones,” he said, noting that the number of dead is likely to grow and “none of us really know the size of it yet.”

“It will certainly be the worst natural disaster that Hawaii ever faced,” Green said as he toured the devastation on historic Front Street in Lahaina. “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.”

At least 2,200 buildings were damaged or destroyed in West Maui, Green said, nearly all of them residential. Across the island, damage was estimated at close to $6bn.

As many as 4,500 people are in need of shelter, county officials said on Facebook, citing figures from the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Pacific Disaster Center.

The latest death toll surpassed that of the 2018 Camp Fire in northern California, which left 85 dead and destroyed the town of Paradise. A century earlier, the 1918 Cloquet Fire broke out in drought-stricken northern Minnesota and raced through rural communities, destroying thousands of homes and killing hundreds.

The cause of the wildfires is under investigation. Hawaii emergency management records do not indicate that the warning sirens sounded before fire hit the town. Officials sent alerts to mobile phones, televisions and radio stations, but widespread power and cellular outages may have limited their reach.

Fueled by a dry summer and strong winds from a passing hurricane, the wildfires on Maui raced through parched brush covering the island. “It outpaced anything firefighters could have done in the early hours,” US Fire Administrator Lori Moore-Merrell said.

Maui’s firefighting efforts may have been hampered by limited staff and equipment.

Bobby Lee, president of the Hawaii Firefighters Association, said there are no more than 65 county firefighters working at any given time, who are responsible for three islands: Maui, Molokai and Lanai.