By Tori B. Powell and Matt Meyer, CNN
The Pacific Disaster Center and FEMA have estimated that the cost of rebuilding from the fire that devastated the historic town of Lahaina will total at least $5.52 billion.
As of Friday, a total of 2,207 structures were damaged or destroyed, and 2,170 acres have burned as a result of the Lahaina fire on Maui, according to an updated damage assessment from the organizations.
An estimated 86% of buildings exposed to the fire were classified as residential, the update said.
From CNN’s Mike Valerio and Cole Higgins
After allowing Lahaina residents to briefly return to parts of the devastated town Friday, Maui Police abruptly shut down the main road into Lahaina just before 4 p.m. local time (10 p.m. ET).
The Maui Police Department said the closure was "effective immediately," according to a Facebook post.
CNN affiliate Hawaii News Now reported residents disregarded access rules within Lahaina, leading law enforcement to shut down entry. Local media reports showed the roadway congested, as officers redirected vehicles.
Law enforcement began allowing members of the public past road blocks to check on property only hours earlier. It remains unclear when public traffic will be restored.
From CNN's Michelle Watson
The Lahaina fire that has claimed the lives of at least 80 people is 85% contained, the County of Maui said on Friday.
Additionally, the Pulehu fire, southeast of Lahaina near Kihei, is 80% contained, the county said in a Facebook post around 3 p.m. local time (9 p.m. ET). The fire in Upcountry Maui, the hilly center of the island where firefighters have struggled to access flames in ravines, is now 50% contained.
"Firefighters continue battling flare-ups in all three fires," the post read.
"Federal Emergency Management Agency Urban Search and Rescue Team, with expertise in human remains, are being deployed to Maui from Arizona and Nevada. Five dogs are being utilized," it added.
From CNN's Ray Sanchez
Maui’s warning sirens were not activated when the Lahaina fire began on Tuesday, records show, according to the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency.
But other layers of the emergency warning system were triggered, including mobile phone alerts and messages on televisions and radio stations, spokesperson Adam Weintraub told CNN on Friday.
"Our review of the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency logs indicates that there was no activation of the sirens on Maui during the wildfire incident,” he said in an interview. “Nobody at the state and nobody at the county attempted to activate those sirens based on our records."
The statewide public safety warning system has about 400 sirens to alert residents to tsunamis and other natural disasters, he said.
On Maui, the second largest island in the Hawaiian archipelago, there are 80 sirens, according to the county website.
"It was largely a function of how fast the flames were moving,” he said of the failure to trigger the vaunted all-hazard emergency siren system. “They were trying to coordinate response on the ground, and they had already issued these other alert systems."
From CNN's Isabelle Chapman, Scott Bronstein, Casey Tolan and Allison Gordon
When Hawaii officials released a report last year ranking the natural disasters most likely to threaten state residents, tsunamis, earthquakes and volcanic hazards featured prominently. Near the bottom of a color-coded chart, the state emergency management agency described the risk of wildfires to human life with a single word: "low."
A year and a half later, the catastrophic fires that engulfed Maui and the historic town of Lahaina this week have already become the state's deadliest natural disaster in more than six decades, with a fatality count of 55 that is expected to rise.
Hawaii officials underestimated the deadly threat of wildfires even as they acknowledged a lack of necessary resources to mitigate them, according to a CNN review of state and local emergency planning documents that show how ill-prepared the state was for the disaster.
One Maui County report on wildfire prevention from 2021 stated that while the number of acres consumed by wildfires had spiked, funds to prevent and mitigate them were "inadequate." The report also stated that the county fire department's strategic plan included "nothing about what can and should be done to prevent fires" — in what it called a "significant oversight."
The report recommended a thorough risk assessment of fire hazards, but it's not clear whether officials heeded the recommendation.
Other reports over the past five years show authorities knew the risk of fires was increasing and could be exacerbated by hurricane-force winds — like the Lahaina blaze was.
"Fires occurring as a result of and concurrent with another major threat or disaster, such as a hurricane, are particularly challenging," one report stated, with first responders and firefighters stretched to capacity. During this week's fires, Hurricane Dora was hundreds of miles south of Maui, but the storm's winds still fanned flames on the island.
The state emergency management agency's public resources webpage also lays out clear, bullet-point recommendations of what residents should do in the event of a hurricane, tsunami, flash flood or earthquake. At the bottom of the page, the agency includes two short paragraphs about wildfires — with no similar advice on ways to stay safe.
Hawaii and Maui County officials didn't immediately respond to requests for comment Friday as disaster response efforts continued.
From CNN’s Andy Rose
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and his fiancée are pledging $100 million to recovery efforts in Maui, Lauren Sánchez announced on her Instagram account Friday.
“Jeff and I are heartbroken by what’s happening in Maui,” Sánchez wrote. “We are thinking of all the families that have lost so much and a community that has been left devastated."
She added: "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."
Bezos and Sánchez have been together since 2019 and were engaged earlier this year, a source told CNN in May.
Bezos is the executive chair of the Amazon board of directors and owns the Washington Post.
The Pacific Disaster Center and FEMA have estimated that the cost of rebuilding from the fire that devastated the historic town of Lahaina will total at least $5.52 billion.
As of Friday, a total of 2,207 structures were damaged or destroyed, and 2,170 acres have burned as a result of the Lahaina fire on Maui, according to an updated damage assessment from the organizations.
An estimated 86% of buildings exposed to the fire were classified as residential, the update said.
After allowing Lahaina residents to briefly return to parts of the devastated town Friday, Maui Police abruptly shut down the main road into Lahaina just before 4 p.m. local time (10 p.m. ET).
The Maui Police Department said the closure was "effective immediately," according to a Facebook post.
CNN affiliate Hawaii News Now reported residents disregarded access rules within Lahaina, leading law enforcement to shut down entry. Local media reports showed the roadway congested, as officers redirected vehicles.
Law enforcement began allowing members of the public past road blocks to check on property only hours earlier. It remains unclear when public traffic will be restored.
The Lahaina fire that has claimed the lives of at least 80 people is 85% contained, the County of Maui said on Friday.
Additionally, the Pulehu fire, southeast of Lahaina near Kihei, is 80% contained, the county said in a Facebook post around 3 p.m. local time (9 p.m. ET). The fire in Upcountry Maui, the hilly center of the island where firefighters have struggled to access flames in ravines, is now 50% contained.
"Firefighters continue battling flare-ups in all three fires," the post read.
"Federal Emergency Management Agency Urban Search and Rescue Team, with expertise in human remains, are being deployed to Maui from Arizona and Nevada. Five dogs are being utilized," it added.
Maui’s warning sirens were not activated when the Lahaina fire began on Tuesday, records show, according to the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency.
But other layers of the emergency warning system were triggered, including mobile phone alerts and messages on televisions and radio stations, spokesperson Adam Weintraub told CNN on Friday.
"Our review of the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency logs indicates that there was no activation of the sirens on Maui during the wildfire incident,” he said in an interview. “Nobody at the state and nobody at the county attempted to activate those sirens based on our records."
The statewide public safety warning system has about 400 sirens to alert residents to tsunamis and other natural disasters, he said.
On Maui, the second largest island in the Hawaiian archipelago, there are 80 sirens, according to the county website.
"It was largely a function of how fast the flames were moving,” he said of the failure to trigger the vaunted all-hazard emergency siren system. “They were trying to coordinate response on the ground, and they had already issued these other alert systems."
When Hawaii officials released a report last year ranking the natural disasters most likely to threaten state residents, tsunamis, earthquakes and volcanic hazards featured prominently. Near the bottom of a color-coded chart, the state emergency management agency described the risk of wildfires to human life with a single word: "low."
A year and a half later, the catastrophic fires that engulfed Maui and the historic town of Lahaina this week have already become the state's deadliest natural disaster in more than six decades, with a fatality count of 55 that is expected to rise.
Hawaii officials underestimated the deadly threat of wildfires even as they acknowledged a lack of necessary resources to mitigate them, according to a CNN review of state and local emergency planning documents that show how ill-prepared the state was for the disaster.
One Maui County report on wildfire prevention from 2021 stated that while the number of acres consumed by wildfires had spiked, funds to prevent and mitigate them were "inadequate." The report also stated that the county fire department's strategic plan included "nothing about what can and should be done to prevent fires" — in what it called a "significant oversight."
The report recommended a thorough risk assessment of fire hazards, but it's not clear whether officials heeded the recommendation.
Other reports over the past five years show authorities knew the risk of fires was increasing and could be exacerbated by hurricane-force winds — like the Lahaina blaze was.
"Fires occurring as a result of and concurrent with another major threat or disaster, such as a hurricane, are particularly challenging," one report stated, with first responders and firefighters stretched to capacity. During this week's fires, Hurricane Dora was hundreds of miles south of Maui, but the storm's winds still fanned flames on the island.
The state emergency management agency's public resources webpage also lays out clear, bullet-point recommendations of what residents should do in the event of a hurricane, tsunami, flash flood or earthquake. At the bottom of the page, the agency includes two short paragraphs about wildfires — with no similar advice on ways to stay safe.
Hawaii and Maui County officials didn't immediately respond to requests for comment Friday as disaster response efforts continued.
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and his fiancée are pledging $100 million to recovery efforts in Maui, Lauren Sánchez announced on her Instagram account Friday.
“Jeff and I are heartbroken by what’s happening in Maui,” Sánchez wrote. “We are thinking of all the families that have lost so much and a community that has been left devastated."
She added: "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."
Bezos and Sánchez have been together since 2019 and were engaged earlier this year, a source told CNN in May.
Bezos is the executive chair of the Amazon board of directors and owns the Washington Post.
