Death toll rises to 67 as Lahaina residents return

We're wrapping up our live coverage of Hawaii's wildfires, the deadliest natural disaster in the state's history.

We've heard harrowing stories of survivors fleeing into the ocean, spending hours in the water as flames engulfed the coastline.

The current death toll stands at 67, but that is expected to rise further.

You can read more here: Lost homes and missing loved ones after Maui wildfires

Or here: What caused the Hawaii wildfires?

The live coverage on this page was brought to you by Brandon Livesay, Marianna Brady and Frances Mao in Washington DC, Max Matza in Maui, and Rob Corp and Alexandra Fouche in London - with help from Sam Hancock, Laura Gozzi, Ali Abbas Ahmadi, Gabriela Pomeroy, Antoinette Radford, Franz Strasser, Mike Wendling, Anna Boyd, Thomas Mackintosh, Tiffanie Turnbull, Christy Cooney, Oliver Slow, Jacqueline Howard and Adam Durbin.

Much has been made about the speed of the fires and just how quickly Lahaina became engulfed on Tuesday.

Here's a timeline of what happened on the day in local Hawaiian time:

• 09:55 - Maui County posted a statement on its website on Tuesday morning saying: “Maui Fire Department declared the Lahaina brush fire 100% contained shortly before 09:00 today,”
• 10:50 - Just under an hour later, a further update said firefighter crews remained on scene at a bush fire which was reported at just after midnight and one which led to evacuations of residents in the Kula 200 and Hanamu Road areas, the county said
• 15:20 - By Tuesday afternoon, another wildfire became an increasing threat: “With the potential risk of escalating conditions from an Upcountry brush fire, the fire department is strongly advising residents of Piʻiholo and Olinda roads to proactively evacuate,” Maui County posted on Facebook
• 15:30 - The Lahaina Bypass was closed due to a flareup in the area
• 17:50 - By Tuesday evening there were “Multiple evacuations in place for Lahaina and Upcountry Maui fires,” the county said

Despite some residents being allowed to return to Lahaina on Friday many of the evacuees at the War Memorial Stadium shelter tell me they’re not in a rush to go back.

Most of them witnessed their homes beginning to catch fire, as they barely escaped, and are certain that nothing remains to return to.

For now, most are just grateful to be alive. That feeling has grown as they learn more details about their neighbours, some of whom did not make it out.

Getty ImagesCopyright: Getty Images

Donations large and small are rolling in to relief and aid organisations on Maui.

The island is home to many wealthy people, including Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. He and his partner Lauren Sanchez have pledged $100m (£79m) to help the fire victims.

Sanchez said in an Instagram post: “We are thinking of all the families that have lost so much and a community that has been left devastated.”

“Jeff and I are creating a Maui Fund and are dedicating $100 million to help Maui get back on its feet now and over the coming years as the continuing needs reveal themselves.”

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Lynette “Pinky” Iverson has been well known in Lahaina for years.

Locals recognise her extravagantly decorated pick-up truck and her two-pound Chihuahua, aptly named Tiny.

On Tuesday, her truck became a lifeline as she escaped her burning home and loaded “at least a dozen” people into its bed.

“I tried to save people, but for some, I wasn’t able to,” she says.

“One lady didn’t want to come out. Another man was screaming for help.”

“By that time we were engulfed in the black smoke,” she says, adding that the only things she was able to grab as she left were her car keys and Tiny.

As we spoke, I noticed something crawling around in the bedding of her cot in the shelter, near her dog. I used my notebook to fling it to the ground where she squashed it dead.

It was a centipede, which I've since learned are venomous. She says Tiny could have died if she was stung.

Iverson was rattled by the ordeal. She’s no stranger to homelessness and says she lived in her truck for six years before finally being accepted into a housing community in Lahaina for disabled and elderly residents.

Now in her 70s, she’s hopeful that it won’t take her that long to find a new place to live.

Captain Aja Kirksey said that of the 17 people the US Coast Guard rescued on Tuesday, two of them were children.

She said that at 17:45 local time on Tuesday, they received an alert of people in the water needing help near Lahaina.

Conditions in the ocean were difficult due to winds from the hurricane, Kirksey said.

“It was a very challenging situation for our small boat crews.”

And at first, helicopters could not come close enough to assist with any rescues because of the smoke.

As for reports of dead bodies in the water, Kirksey said "a Coast Guard helicopter did observe one unresponsive victim in the water," but that’s all they can say with certainty, yet.

Lahaina residents who managed to evacuate and escape the fires are now permitted to return back to town.

The governor has warned people to brace for the destruction.

The death toll stands at 59, the governor just said, but that is expected to rise as officials begin to search inside burned structures.

Everyone must leave by 10pm local time when a curfew will be put in place.

Getty ImagesCopyright: Getty Images

Getty ImagesCopyright: Getty Images

Getty ImagesCopyright: Getty Images

The causes of any single weather event are complex. This fire was made worse by the winds from an offshore hurricane.

But Hawaii’s wildfires are becoming more frequent. Scientists point to changing agricultural practices as well as to climate change bringing less rainfall and longer periods of drought.

And now the impact is being felt even by even the world’s wealthiest.

Questions are being asked about whether sufficient warning was given. Some residents report receiving text alerts… others say they heard nothing.

The authorities, for now, are focused on the search for bodies.

And while the official declaration of a major disaster means there will be assistance, many residents are wondering if they’ll ever be able to return to the lives they’ve left behind in the rubble.

Even with the rest of Hawaii relatively unaffected, the scale of the task ahead is huge… a climate disaster stretching one of the wealthiest states, in one of the world’s wealthiest countries, to the limit.

Getty ImagesCopyright: Getty Images

Maui officials just gave an update on the local radio with more details for residents wishing to return to Lahaina.

As of now, which is just after noon local time, residents may enter the town if they show proof of residency.

As we previously mentioned, a daily curfew will begin at 22:00 each night and end at 06:00 in the morning.

The curfew is intended to protect residences and property, the county said.

Officials said that western Maui still has no power today and more emergency crews are arriving from around the state and the mainland US.

ReutersCopyright: Reuters

The mood has changed inside the war memorial stadium shelter.

Many evacuees are on their phones, finally receiving updates on those that did not survive. Lahaina native Sione Pani just heard the news that his uncle didn’t make it out of town before the fires hit.

“He was in his car with his wife,” he says. They were with at least one of their grandchildren, he adds. “They found them inside,” he says. “They couldn’t make it.”

He learned of their deaths 20 minutes before speaking to BBC News.

His mother, who fled the flames with him on foot on Tuesday, called to let him know.

Waiola ChurchCopyright: Waiola Church

Residents are taking stock of Lahaina’s historic buildings, and one landmark hasn’t survived.

Waiola Church sits on the site of a mission to Hawaii first established 200 years ago. It was the church for Hawaii’s royal family, some of whom are buried in the nearby graveyard. But it’s been completely destroyed by the wildfire.

“It's gone, the social hall, the sanctuary, the annexe, all of it," the church’s lay minister Anela Rosa told the USA Today newspaper. "It is totally unimaginable."

This is not the first time the church has been destroyed by fire or wind – it was most recently rebuilt in 1953.

There was better news about another historic building, the Maria Lanakila Catholic Church. It too dates from the 19th Century, but church officials say it’s survived mostly intact.

ReutersCopyright: Reuters

The wildfires in Hawaii follow other extreme weather events worldwide in recent months.

The University of Hawaii has said large fires break out almost annually in some parts of the Hawaiian islands, but that the scale of the current fires is unusual.

Experts say many of the wildfires around the world are linked to human-induced climate change that is exacerbated by the continued use of fossil fuels. Some regions - such as the western US - have seen an increase in the area burnt by wildfires in recent decades.

Here are other devastating wildfires over the past year:

• Greece - at least seven people died in hundreds of fires across the mainland and the Greek islands
• Spain and Portugal - thousands of people have been displaced in wildfires that are currently raging. In July, Spanish authorities said that at least 300 people had died from excess heat
• Algeria, Tunisia - at least 34 people were killed in Algeria due to wildfires that spread across north Africa
• Canada - more than 25,000 acres (100 sq km) burned in what was Canada's worst wildfire season, and remembered by dramatic images of smoke covering New York city
• Chile - more than 20 people dead, at least 1,100,000 acres (4451 sq km) burned following the worst drought in a thousand years
• Kazakhstan - at least 14 people dead, around 150,000 acres (607 sq km) burned

Max Matza for the BBCCopyright: Max Matza for the BBC

I was speaking to a family of tourists from Portland, Oregon, who were visiting Maui.

Staying at the Westin Ka'anapali – a little way outside the badly-damaged town of Lahaina – grandmother Lisa Schmidt, mother Erin Grayson and daughter Brooke Ferguson were forced to flee from the fires.

Schmidt says she was most emotional when she discovered that the townspeople were not warned of the fires, that it “just took people by surprise that were in downtown Lahaina”.

“It just breaks my heart that people just lost everything. Everything. And with no warning. The warning system didn’t work, that’s just horrible.”

They drove through Lahaina on their way to the shelter, and saw its devastation first hand.

“It looked like a bomb went off there,” says Ferguson.

They saw cars that were burned up, and “houses burned to the ground”. Only random, “sporadic” buildings were still left standing, they say.

Maui Human Society FacebookCopyright: Maui Human Society Facebook

The Maui Humane Society, an animal shelter in Puunene on Maui island, is raising funds as it deals with an influx of animals who have been injured or lost during the wildfires.

The organisation says it expects an "inundation of hundreds of animals who have been burned, lost during the evacuation process and those in need of critical care due to smoke inhalation."

Pets are often unfortunate casualties of natural disasters as owners are often unable to take them when they flee.

Local officials have given details about the reopening of Lahaina.

As expected, residents will start to be allowed back into the town in the next couple of hours - at noon local time (22:00 GMT).

They'll need to show proof of residency and visitors will need proof of a hotel reservation.

A curfew will operate daily from 22:00 to 06:00 local time, Maui County Mayor Richard Bissen said during a briefing broadcast on local radio stations.

Some residents are being allowed back into Lahaina, but Hawaii's governor has warned them about the scenes of destruction.

Here are some of the newest photos coming in from Reuters that show how the fire ripped through the town.

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ReutersCopyright: Reuters

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The situation appears to be slowly changing this morning at the War Memorial Stadium shelter.

Yesterday, evening new evacuees continued to flow in at a rapid rate. Beds and cots still overflow from the crowded gymnasium.

This morning, fewer evacuees are arriving, but volunteers are coming by to donate everything from fresh fruit to clothing.

One man told me he was offering people tobacco and cannabis, since he felt that was what he would need most if he was forced to flee home.

This is only one of six shelters on Maui opened by authorities.