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Lahaina, Hawaii: The emergency management chief of the Hawaiian island of Maui has defended his agency’s decision against sounding sirens during last week’s deadly fire amid questions about whether doing so might have saved lives.

Herman Andaya, administrator of the Maui County Emergency Management Agency, said sirens in Hawaii are used to alert people to tsunamis. Using it during the fire might have led people to evacuate toward the danger, he said.

A warning siren survives the fire that ravaged Lahaina on the island of Maui in Hawaii.Credit: Reuters

The August 8 grass fire raced down the base of a volcano sloping into the tourist resort town of Lahaina, killing at least 110 people and destroying or damaging some 2200 buildings.

“The public is trained to seek higher ground in the event that the siren is sounded,” Andaya said during a press conference, which grew tense at times as reporters questioned the government’s response.

“Had we sounded the siren that night, we’re afraid that people would have gone mauka [to the mountainside] and if that was the case, then they would have gone into the fire,” Andaya said.

Maui instead relied on two different alert systems, one that sent text messages to phones and another that broadcast emergency messages on television and radio, Andaya said.

Because the sirens are primarily located on the waterfront, they would have been useless to people on higher ground, he said.

Hawaii’s Governor Josh Green warned people not go approach residents with a “land grab”. Credit: Reuters

Hawaii Governor Josh Green also defended the decision not to sound sirens. Green has ordered the state attorney general to conduct a comprehensive review of the emergency response that would bring in outside investigators and experts, clarifying that the review was “not a criminal investigation in any way.”

“The most important thing we can do at this point is to learn how to keep ourselves safer going forward,” Green said.

He also warned opportunists not to approach residents with offers to buy their land, vowing to keep it “in local people’s hands”.

He said he had instructed the state attorney-general to work towards a moratorium on land transactions in Lahaina. He acknowledged the move would likely face legal challenges.

“My intention from start to finish is to make sure that no one is victimised from a land grab.

“People are right now traumatised. Please do not approach them with an offer to buy their land. Do not approach their families saying they’ll be much better off if they make a deal. Because we’re not going to allow it.”

Officials on Wednesday reopened a main road through town for the first time in days, responding to frustration from residents. The highway, which bypasses the charred waterfront and town centre, was previously closed to all but residents of the surrounding area, first responders and people who work in local businesses.

Hundreds of people are still unaccounted for, especially in areas still without communications.

Twenty cadaver dogs have led teams on a block-by-block search that have covered 38 per cent of the disaster area as of Thursday afternoon (AEST). The number of dogs would soon double to 40, Green said

A search and rescue crew member works in an area destroyed by the Maui fires in Lahaina, Hawaii, on Wednesday.Credit: Reuters

US President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden will travel to Hawaii on Monday to survey the devastation and meet with first responders, survivors and federal, state and local officials, the White House said.

As officials work to identify the deceased, stories about those injured or killed in the flames have emerged from loved ones. Laurie Allen suffered burns to more than 70 per cent of her body when the car she was escaping in was blocked by a downed tree, forcing her to flee across a burning field, according to a GoFundMe post by her family. She is burnt to the bone in some places, but doctors hope she will regain partial use of her arms, the post said.

“The Burn Team has expressed more than once that she shouldn’t be alive!” a relative wrote on the page. Allen is now at a burn centre in Oahu, according to the fundraiser post.

The incongruous sight of tourists enjoying Maui’s tropical beaches while search-and-rescue teams trawl building ruins and waters for victims of the deadliest US wildfire in more than a century has outraged some residents.

Reuters

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