Maui Fire Now Deadliest US Wildfire In Over A Century

The Associated Press reports:

As the death toll from a wildfire that razed a historic Maui town reached 93, authorities warned Saturday that the effort to find and identify the dead was still in its early stages. It’s already the deadliest U.S. wildfire for over a century.

Crews with cadaver dogs have covered just 3% of the search area, Maui Police Chief John Pelletier said. “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,” noting that the death toll is likely to grow and “none of us really know the size of it yet.”

Pelletier said identifying the dead is extremely challenging because “we pick up the remains and they fall apart … When we find our family and our friends, the remains that we’re finding is through a fire that melted metal.”

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