What to know about Maui’s wildfires, Hawaii’s deadliest disaster

KAHULUI, Hawaii - Wildfires on Hawaii’s Maui have

killed at least 99 people,

forced tens of thousands of residents and tourists to evacuate the island and devastated the historic resort city of Lahaina. It is the United States’ deadliest wildfire in more than a century. The Big Island of Hawaii is also battling wildfires, which have caused no fatalities.

Here are some key questions and answers about the blazes:

Are the Maui fires still burning?

Firefighting crews are still battling flare-ups. The largest fire in Lahaina is 85 per cent contained and has burnt 880 ha, Maui County said. Another fire in upcountry/Kula is 60 per cent contained and has charred 270 ha. Smaller fires elsewhere are now 100 per cent contained.

But officials say it is likely the number of dead will rise, as cadaver dogs search Lahaina’s charred ruins for victims.

How does the death toll compare with that of other fires in the US?

The Maui blaze is the deadliest wildfire in the United States since 1918, when northern Minnesota’s Cloquet Fire, which raged for more than four days, claimed 453 lives, according to the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA). The deadliest wildfire in US history, Wisconsin’s Peshtigo fire in 1871, killed an estimated 1,152.

California’s deadliest modern fire broke out on Nov 8, 2018, at dawn in the town of Paradise, some 240km to the north of San Francisco, killing 85 people over more than two weeks.

It burnt more than 62,000 ha of land and reduced more than 18,800 buildings to ashes.

An investigation found that high-tension electricity wires sparked the fire.

Hawaii’s fires also constitute the most lethal disaster to hit the islands since a tsunami that killed 61 people in 1960, a year after Hawaii became a US state.

What were the world’s deadliest wildfires?

The Maui wildfire s among the most deadly of the 21st century.

Some previous deadly wildfires are:

Australia (2009): In the Black Saturday bushfires in the state of Victoria, 173 people were killed in the country’s worst bushfire on Feb 7, 2009.

Whole towns and more than 2,000 homes were destroyed.

Greece (2007 and 2018): In Greece’s worst fire disaster, 103 people died when wildfires swept through homes and vehicles in the coastal town of Mati near Athens in July 2018, leaving only charred remains.

The majority of the victims were trapped by the flames as they sat in traffic jams while trying to flee. Others drowned while trying to escape by sea.

In 2007, a 12-day inferno starting in late August killed at least 67 people and destroyed 800 homes across the southern Peloponnese peninsula.

The flames engulfed most of the region’s olive groves. The Aegean island of Evia was also badly affected.

In all 77 people died that summer due to fires.

Algeria in 2021 and 2022: More than 90 people, including 33 soldiers, were

killed in dozens of wildfires in Algeria in August 2021.

The government blamed arsonists and a blistering heatwave for the blazes, but experts also criticised the authorities for failing to prepare for the annual wildfire season.

In August 2022, massive blazes killed 37 people over several days in north-eastern El Tarf province, near the border with Tunisia.

More than 10,000 hectares went up in smoke in El Kala National Park, a Unesco-listed heritage spot famous for its rich marine, dune, lake and forest ecosystems.

Portugal (2017): The deadliest wildfires in Portuguese history broke out in the central Leiria region during a heatwave in June 2017 and burned through hills covered with pine and eucalyptus trees for five days.

Many of the 66 people who died became trapped in their cars while trying to escape.

In October, a new series of deadly fires broke out in northern Portugal, killing another 45 people as well as four in neighbouring Spain. Those fires were chiefly blamed on arsonists. REUTERS, AFP