Authorities in Hawaii have adjusted the number of deaths from the deadly Maui wildfires down to at least 97 people. The number of the missing fell from 41 to 31,
California’s bone hunters, forensic experts who are veterans of disaster, sift through Maui’s burn fields for the missing dead. ‘We owe it to the families.’The Lahaina fire is the deadliest in the U.S. in more than a century. Caught in a hellscape, some residents died in their cars, while others jumped into the ocean or tried to run for safety. The Aug. 8 blaze reduced much of the historic town to ash.
Byrd said the initial death tally was too high for several reasons, adding that the lower tally now was the “normal and natural” progression of the long-term forensics investigation. “We look at body bags that come in and we do an initial inventory and we assess how many people are represented there,” he said. “When you do the first tally of all those that have come in, the number tends to be too high because as you begin to do more analysis and examination you realize that actually you’ve got two bags that were the same person or you have two bags that were the same two people but you didn’t realize that.