Maui wildfire death toll at 89, marking deadliest natural disaster in US history

Hawaii Wildfires: Federal emergency management agency (FEMA) said that the cost to rebuild Lahaina was estimated at $5.5 billion.

The death toll from the Maui wildfires is now at 89, officials said, making it the deadliest US wildfire in more than hundred years as search teams continued to sift through the ruins of Lahaina, four days after the blaze in the resort town. Federal emergency management agency (FEMA) said that the cost to rebuild Lahaina was estimated at $5.5 billion as more than 2,200 structures have been damaged and over 2,100 acres (850 hectares) burned.

Hawaii Wildfires: The shells of burned houses and buildings are left after wildfires driven by high winds burned across most of the town in Lahaina, Maui. (Reuters)

Here are the latest updates on Maui wildfires:

1. Governor Josh Green warned that the death toll would continue to rise as more bodies were discovered.
2. "Our focus now is to reunite people where we can, and to get them housing and get them health care, and then turn to rebuilding," he said.
3. The state's attorney general Anne Lopez said that she was launching a review of the decision-making both before and during the fire.
4. A confluence of factors led to the wildfires, officials claimed. These include communications network failures, powerful wind gusts from an offshore hurricane and a separate wildfire dozens of miles away.
5. The death toll made the wildfire Hawaii's worst natural disaster in history, surpassing a tsunami that killed 61 people in 1960.
6. The latest death toll also exceeded the 85 people who were killed in a 2018 fire in the town of Paradise, California- highest toll from a wildfire since 1918.
7. Authorities began allowing residents back into west Maui even though the fire zone in Lahaina remained barricaded. Hundreds of people were still missing, officials said.
8. The disaster began just after midnight on Tuesday when a fire was reported in the town of Kula.