Dozens dead as wildfires engulf Hawaiian town

Crews continued mass evacuation efforts and desperate searches for survivors in the historic town of Lahaina in Hawaii yesterday, after at least 36 people died in ferocious wildfires. Officials warned that the death toll in the blazes on the island of Maui could rise.

- Oliver Holmes, Edward Helmore, Sam Levin

Search teams spread out to charred areas on the island at first light.

"We barely made it out," Kamuela Kawaakoa, 34, a resident of Lahaina told the Associated Press at an evacuation shelter on Wednesday. "It was so hard to sit there and just watch my town burn to ashes and not be able to do anything."

Fire engulfed the town of 13,000 residents on Tuesday night when strong winds propelled a blaze that had started in vegetation expanded to the urban centre. With flames and smoke rapidly spreading, some adults and children had to dive into the ocean for safety.

By Wednesday, it had become clear that significant parts of Lahaina, once the capital of the Hawaiian royal kingdom, had been destroyed. The fire, the deadliest in the US in five years, appears to have consumed most of the town's historic waterfront, including 271 structures and homes. It incinerated what is described as the largest banyan in the US. Aerial video showed businesses destroyed on Front street, a popular tourist destination. "It was like a war zone," Alan Barrios, a Lahaina resident, told Hawaii Civil Beat. "There was explosions left and right."