A Maine native living in Maui and working as a pastor is rallying his community to offer support to Maui wildfire survivors.
As of Friday morning, at least 80 people had died in the fires that tore through the region.
Matt Brunk, originally from Limington, and his wife are working to support the local community as recovery efforts get underway, WMTW reported.
“I met with many of our people last night for a time of prayer in a park, just kind of regrouping, understanding where everybody’s at,” Brunk told CBS 13 on Friday.
“Everybody’s just mobilizing wherever they can to help. Many are at a shelter volunteering their time. Some are with family members trying to understand where relatives are.”
Recovery efforts are underway, with cadaver-sniffing dogs working to locate those who died in the blaze.
The wildfires are the state’s deadliest natural disaster in decades, surpassing a 1960 tsunami that killed 61 people. An even deadlier tsunami in 1946, which killed more than 150 on the Big Island, prompted development of a territory-wide emergency system with sirens that are tested monthly.
But many fire survivors said they didn’t hear any sirens or receive a warning giving them enough time to prepare, realizing they were in danger only when they saw flames or heard explosions.
Hawaii emergency management records do not indicate warning sirens sounded before people had to run for their lives. Officials sent alerts to mobile phones, televisions and radio stations, but widespread power and cellular outages may have limited their reach.
Fueled by a dry summer and strong winds from a passing hurricane, at least three wildfires erupted on Maui, racing through parched brush covering the island.
The wildfire is already projected to be the second-costliest disaster in Hawaii history, behind only Hurricane Iniki in 1992, according to disaster and risk modeling firm Karen Clark & Company. The fire is the deadliest in the U.S. since the 2018 Camp Fire in California, which killed at least 85 people and destroyed the town of Paradise.
Many firefighters said that the speed that the fire moved at made it extremely difficult to contain.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
