Hawaii wildfire’s death toll reaches 100 as officials identified the last known victim of the horrifying blaze that tore through Lahaina as a 70-year-old woman who lost eight other family members in the inferno.
Lydia Coloma was identified Friday as the last of the 100 known victims of the wildfire that destroyed Maui’s historic town of Lahaina in August, as she also lost her husband, sister, brother-in-law and other family members.
Maui police said they identified her based on the context of where the remains were found, rather than through DNA or other positive identification methods as her remains were severely damaged.
‘She is a mother, a wife, a well-respected community member,’ Maui Police officer Steven Landsiedel said in an interview with CNN.
Lydia Coloma was identified Friday as the last of the 100 known victims of the wildfire that destroyed Maui’s historic town of Lahaina in August, as she also lost eight family members in the inferno
Tina Acosta, Coloma’s sister-in-law, said the family was from the Ilocos Sur province in the Philippines
Hawaii wildfires death toll reaches 100 as officials identified the last known victim of the horrifying blaze that tore through Lahaina
Coloma worked at Foodland Lahaina, a local grocery store and her husband, Salvador, worked at PWC Hawaii, a janitorial services company.
Tina Acosta, Coloma’s sister-in-law, said the family was from the Ilocos Sur province in the Philippines.
‘We were waiting,’ she said, adding that she didn’t know why the final identification took so long.
Identifying those who perished in the deadliest wildfire in the U.S. in more than a century has been a long, arduous process.
Forensic experts and more than 40 cadaver dogs have had to sift through ash searching for bodies that were possibly cremated, and authorities collected DNA samples from victims´ family members.
The DNA testing allowed officials in September to revise the death toll downward, from 115 to at least 97. The toll rose slightly over the next month as some victims succumbed to their injuries or as police found additional remains.
Identifying those who perished in the deadliest wildfire in the U.S. in more than a century has been a long, arduous process
Forensic experts and more than 40 cadaver dogs have had to sift through ash searching for bodies that were possibly cremated, and authorities collected DNA samples from victims´ family members
The DNA testing allowed officials in September to revise the death toll downward, from 115 to at least 97. The toll rose slightly over the next month as some victims succumbed to their injuries or as police found additional remains
The number of those who remain unaccounted for has also fallen – to just a few from a previous high of nearly 400, according to the Maui Police Department.
Coloma has been removed from the list of missing people tracked by Maui police, after her official identification as a victim.
Now, three people remain on the list including Paul Kasprzycki, 76; Robert Owens, 65; and Elmer Lee Stevens, 73, according to MPD’s credible list of missing individuals.
Authorities began reopening the burn zone last fall to residents and property owners who lost homes while urging returning residents not to sift through the ashes for fear of raising toxic dust.
This month, crews started clearing debris from residential lots. The waste is being wrapped in thick industrial plastic before the Army Corps of Engineers takes it to a temporary storage site south of Lahaina.
The disaster devastated Maui and Hawaii more broadly. Caught in a hellscape, some residents died in their cars, while others jumped into the ocean or tried to run for safety.
The cause of the fire is still under investigation. It may have been sparked by downed power lines that ignited dry, invasive grasses.
An aerial view of Lahaina after wildfires burned through the town on the Hawaiian island of Maui, on August 10
An aerial view shows the historic banyan tree along with destroyed homes, boats, and buildings burned to the ground in the historic Lahaina town in the aftermath of wildfires in western Maui, Hawaii, on August 10
An AP investigation found it could be caused by an overgrown gully beneath Hawaiian Electric Co. power lines and something that harbored smoldering embers from an initial fire that burned in the morning and then rekindled in high winds that afternoon.
Some scientists introduced laboratory models showing the wildfire was actually fueled by the same meteorological phenomenon responsible for California’s most damaging wildfires – a downslope windstorm.
Atmospheric researchers simulated the weather and fire trends in western Maui on August 8 to grasp a better understanding on what made the Lahaina Fire so destructive.
Cliff Mass, an atmospheric sciences professor at the University of Washington who simulated the Maui event, said the combination of flammable fuels, strong winds and an ignition source is a recurring recipe for destructive fires.
‘There’s a real story for Californians here because what happened in Maui, what happened in the Marshall Fire, what happened at Paradise … they’re all the same thing,’ Mass said to the San Fransisco Chronicle.
The blaze destroyed more than 2,000 buildings, most of them homes, and is estimated to have caused $5.5 billion in damage.
Nearly six months after the blaze, about 5,000 displaced residents were still living in hotels or other short-term accommodations around Maui.
Economists have warned that without zoning and other changes, housing costs in already expensive Lahaina could be prohibitively costly for many after rebuilding.