Hawaii Wildfire Death Toll Rises to 53 as Residents Describe Racing Against Time to Leave

“It was truly like we didn’t know what we were getting ourselves into, but we wanted to help,” shared volunteer Mia Kittelson exclusively with PEOPLE

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The impact of the devastating wildfires on the Hawaiian island of Maui continues to be felt by its residents.

After several large wildfires were first reported on the island on Tuesday, Maui County issued an update on Thursday, indicating that the death toll has risen to 53 individuals. The update comes after the county shared earlier on Thursday that 80 percent of a fire in Lahaina had been contained, with 70 percent of a fire in Pulehu having also been suppressed.

With much of the island being forced to evacuate and seek emergency shelter, Haiku resident Mia Kittelson tells PEOPLE that she found her way through the tragedy by offering hope and comfort to others.

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Related: Everything to Know About the 2023 Hawaii Wildfires, Including Ways to Help the Victims

“I woke up in the day having absolutely no idea what was going on,” she recalled of the emergency situation.

So she had breakfast and headed to work, where she runs social media. When she logged onto platforms, the picture became clear.

“It was just devastating seeing everything,” she says of photos capturing the devastation. “We all sat around like, ‘Wow. We can’t just sit here. We’ve got to do something.'”

Kittelson, 23, tells PEOPLE that she and her coworkers at Maui Longevity Rx teamed up with MODO Medical to help hand out supplies, evacuate people, and connect individuals with their loved ones.

Jack Truesdale/Civil Beat/ZUMA Press Wire

“We actually had no idea what was open for us,” she explained. “Nobody knew.” Communication was difficult, with Kittelson describing it as “the blind leading the blind,” adding, “It was truly like we didn’t know what we were getting ourselves into, but we wanted to help.”

Related: How to Help Pets and Rescue Animals Affected by the Hawaii Wildfires

With the determination to take action, Kittelson says that her experience began by seeing “people on the side of the road” and feeling like it was “something out of a movie.”

“They were just walking and had no direction, nowhere to go,” she says. “We pulled over, gave them food, water, comfort, obviously. I hugged a lot of people. One guy had shared with me that he had just lost everything. He gave me his contact to his children and asked me as soon as I could to call them and let them know that he’s alive and that he loves them.”

Jack Truesdale/Civil Beat/ZUMA Press Wire

Amanda Bratton, a resident of Lahaina who got engaged to her fiancé Stevie Meskill in July, tells PEOPLE that she watched the nightmare unfold while she was in Georgia to plan her wedding.

“Our whole town is gone. Our jobs are gone. Our house is gone,” she explained. “Our cars are gone and our whole community is just, I mean, it’s the entire town. So it’s like I’ve never seen anything this tragic since 9-11. It’s like, what do you do when you weren’t expecting your entire town, all the buildings and businesses and houses, to just be wiped out?”

The 28-year-old had left her 3-year-old golden retriever Remington with a sitter in Maui, which made the experience even more horrific.

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“The dog sitter, their house caught on fire while they were there and in order to get out of the house quick enough, she had to grab whatever was available,” Bratton says. “So she only grabbed their leashes and she grabbed their dog food and she left all her own personal belongings behind, and so she sacrificed taking her own things to take our dog’s food, which I mean when I heard that, I mean, I got hysterical because I hadn’t heard from them during the fires.”

Due to many residents being without signal, it took until the following morning for her to learn that Remington was okay. While the experience put her wedding planning on hold, Bratton tells PEOPLE that her “priority is life… Not wedding, that’s for sure.” Bratton’s family began a fundraiser to help her and Meskill start over, raising over $11,000 so far.

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