Maui fires updates: Wildfire miracle with 60 survivors found in home as video shows possible cause

Chilling drone footage captured over the weekend showed what was left of Lahaina, the historic town that was incinerated when wildfires ravaged the Hawaiian island of Maui.

All that was left of the razed neighbourhoods were smouldering ruins as some residents returned to survey the destruction.

Andrea Cavallier reports:

Airbnb.org, a nonprofit organisation that connects victims of crises to temporary housing, has teamed up to help house victims of the Maui wildfires that lost all of their belongings and homes.

The company will provide, free temporary stays for at least 1,000 displaced Maui residents.

“We are so incredibly appreciative of the outpouring of community support for Maui in offering their properities to house those deeply affected by the Maui fires. This is aloha in action,” governor Green said.

Those with homes that have a spare room can sign up to house another person on Airbnb.org or other people can donate on their website.

Awakened by howling winds that tore through his Maui neighborhood, Shane Treu went out at dawn and saw a wooden power pole suddenly snap with a flash, its sparking, popping line falling to the dry grass below and quickly igniting a row of flames.

He called 911 and then turned on Facebook video to livestream his attempt to fight the blaze in Lahaina, including wetting down his property with a garden hose.

“I heard ‘buzz, buzz,’” the 49-year-old resort worker recounted to The Associated Press. “It was almost like somebody lit a firework. It just ran straight up the hill to a bigger pile of grass and then, with that high wind, that fire was blazing.”

Mr Treu’s video and others captured the early moments of what would become the deadliest US wildfire in more than a century. Now the footage has emerged as key evidence pointing to fallen utility lines as the possible cause. Hawaiian Electric Co. faces criticism for not shutting off the power amid high wind warnings and keeping it on even as dozens of poles began to topple.

A class-action lawsuit has already been filed seeking to hold the company responsible for the deaths of at least 99 people. The suit cites the utility’s own documents showing it was aware that preemptive power shutoffs such as those used in California were an effective strategy to prevent wildfires but never adopted them.

The Associated Press contribute to this report

Canned meat brand Spam, a beloved Hawaiian staple, has announced its intention to help bring food to the island amid the devastating wildfires.

In a statement shared to Facebook on 10 August, Spam, which is owned by Hormel Foods, announced it is partnering with humanitarian organisation Convoy of Hope to send more of the product to residents that have been affected by the wildfires across the state. The most recent death toll has reached 106 and is expected to rise as only 32 per cent of the burned area of Lahaina has been searched.

Mick Fleetwood has spoken out about the “catastrophic” wildfire disaster that ravaged the Hawaiian island of Maui last week.

Fleetwood lives in Hawaii, though was out of the state when the fires began. When the news broke, the Fleetwood Mac musician, who owned a restaurant on Maui, immediately flew back to help provide aid and supplies.

Speaking to Sky News, he said: “These hills were ablaze and I wasn’t there… I was feeling helpless, and switches were going on and off as to what to do.”

While Fleetwood’s house was not damaged by the fire, his restaurant, Fleetwood’s on Front St, in the town of Lahaina, was completely destroyed.

“It’s an incredible shock for everyone,” Fleetwood said. “The whole town of Lahaina is no more. That in itself is a statement that leads you immediately to the people who lived there.”

“Selfishly, I haven’t lost a family member. I didn’t lose my house. Yeah, it could have happened, but it didn’t happen… I’m really lucky. Now, what the hell can I do? The immediacy is finding people. The immediacy is communicating and knowing who’s here and who’s safe.”

The British drummer went on to implore people to “pay attention” to the situation in Lahaina, and warned of land developers who would seek to profit from the aftermath of the disaster.

“The thought of it becoming some form of playground with no reference to the dignity of that town, to me, would be abhorrent,” he continued.

A man who escaped the Maui fires by spending hours in the ocean has revealed harrowing details of how he survived one of the most terrifying natural disasters the country has seen in years.

Local resident Mike Cicchino, who lived in one of Lahaina’s inland neighbourhoods with his wife, has spoken out about his terrifying escape from the deadly fires last week.

Mr Cicchino was driving to the hardware store last Tuesday for a generator when he was suddenly caught in a desperate fight for his life.

The neighbourhood quickly became engulfed in flames and it was “like a continuous bomb going off,” Mr Cicchino told NewsNation host Natasha Zouves.

Mr Cicchino raced back to his house and gathered his wife and the dogs they were watching and attempted to flee the area. The smoke was so thick and black, they eventually lost some of the dogs, he said.

“Behind us, straight ahead, beside us, everywhere was on fire,” Mr Cicchino said.

Their only option, as they could tell, was to jump into the ocean.

For the next five or six hours, Mr Cicchino said that he and his wife moved back and forth between the ocean and shore. When flames fell from the sky, they ducked beneath the surface of the water.

“There are points where we were starting to pass out and we were about to drown,” Mr Cicchino said. “Then, we got to come to shore. The cars parked next to shore caught on fire or were exploding. It was a leapfrog of fire. Go out, we’re getting burned. Come in, go out. Everywhere, we were getting burned or we couldn’t breathe.”

Mr Cicchino broke down as he recounted seeing death unfold before his eyes while desperately trying to keep himself and his wife above water.

They saw several bodies slumped against a wall at the shoreline, he said.

Other people in the ocean desperately clung to their babies and small children as the water whipped them around for hours. When Mr Cicchino later returned with the US Coast Guard to help pull people out of the water, the babies were gone.

“I saw babies out there that I never saw again,” Mr Cicchino said, his voice breaking. “When I came back, when I was doing a headcount of the kids, the babies weren’t there anymore.”

Highly flammable grass is believed to have fuelled the rapid spread of the deadly wildfires in Maui that have killed at least 106 people and destroyed the island’s historic town of Lahaina.

Experts say the invasive, non-native grassland that covers a quarter of the Hawaii islands has been a major fire risk they have been warning about for years.

The types of grass, including guinea grass, molasses grass and buffel grass, originated in Africa but were brought to Hawaii for livestock because it proved drought-resistant.

“These grasses are highly aggressive, grow very fast and are highly flammable,” Melissa Chimera, who coordinates the Pacific Fire Exchange, a Hawaii-based project sharing fire science among Pacific island governments, told The New York Times.

Andrea Cavallier reports.

Maui residents have been warned that wildfires burning since 8 August have contaminated water, air and soil and could pose health risks for months to come.

The deadly wildfires have claimed at least 99 lives, and destroyed an estimated 2,700 buildings around Lahaina containing hazardous household wastes, treated wood, paints and other toxic materials, officials said.

The large group had sheltered in an isolated residence in western Maui that had been without electricity and cell phone coverage since 8 August, Maui County mayor Richard Bisset said.

Mr Bisset revealed details of the extraordinary rescue as the death toll from the deadly wildfires rose to 106.

“We discovered yesterday that there was a family that was housing 60 people at a home on the west side, and many of those folks were unaccounted for, and they’ve now been reunited with their families,” Mr Bisset said.

Bevan Hurley reports on this shocking development.