Maui wildfires live: Hawaii wildfire becomes deadliest in modern US history as death toll tops 93 across Lahaina

With the death toll from the Maui wildfires reaching 93 early on Sunday, governor Josh Green has labeled it the “worst natural disaster that Hawaii ever faced”.

The scale of the damage came into sharper focus on Saturday, four days after a fast-moving blaze leveled the historic resort town of Lahaina, obliterating buildings and melting cars.

Expressing shock over the scale of devastation, Mr Green said: “We can only wait and support those who are living. Our focus now is to reunite people when we can and get them housing and get them healthcare, and then turn to rebuilding.”

Authorities warned on Saturday that the effort to find and identify the dead was still in its early stages. It’s already the deadliest US wildfire for over a century.

Crews with cadaver dogs have completed just 3% of the search area, Maui Police Chief John Pelletier said.

Fleetwood Mac singer Stevie Nicks has posted a lengthy tribute on Instagram to Lahaina, the Maui town worst affected by the ongoing wildfires.

Nicks wrote that she owns a house on Maui a short distance from the town, and called Lahaina “the most magical place on earth”.

She captioned the tribute: “Lahaina is not gone ~ It is just away.”

A fast-moving wildfire that incinerated much of the compact coastal settlement last week has multiplied concerns that any homes rebuilt there will be targeted at affluent outsiders seeking a tropical haven. That would turbo-charge what is already one of Hawaii’s gravest and biggest challenges: the exodus and displacement of Native Hawaiian and local-born residents who can no longer afford to live in their homeland.

Survivors witnessed a surreal landscape of flattened homes, blackened hulks of burned-out cars and ashy lots where buildings once stood as they took stock of their shattered lives in the aftermath of a fast-paced wildfire on the Hawaii island of Maui that authorities say killed at least 80 people.

Residents were faced with catastrophic destruction resulting from the wildfires that tore through parts of Maui and the town of Lahaina this week.

“We lost everything, thank god we still have each other. We were all alive and safe and counted for. It’s like we are the only things we have now because everything we had in the past is gone,” one resident, Christie Gagala, said.

President Joe Biden briefly responded to a shouted question from a reporter on Sunday morning concerning whether he would be visiting the site of the wildfire disaster in Maui.

As he cycled past the White House pool, Mr Biden did not stop, but replied: “We’re looking at it.”

While it is expected of presidents to visit the sites of calamities, both manmade and natural, the logistics involved are difficult given the strain on those localities impacted in the days after a disaster.

The White House tends to hold off on presidential trips in the initial aftermath to avoid getting in the way of recovery efforts. There is also the added logistical issue that Maui is a ten-hour flight from Washington, DC.