Firefighters were working early on Friday to extinguish flare-ups and fully contain the wildfires in Lahaina and other parts of Maui, as the death toll from one of the deadliest natural disasters in Hawaii’s history grew to 55 and was expected to climb.

Emergency workers were set to resume their search for victims in burned-out areas, with help from more search-and-rescue personnel who
had arrived on the island to assist.

The high winds that caused the deadly wildfires on the island earlier in the week were expected to ease, but power outages and water shortages were still affecting the historic town of Lahaina and other parts of Maui, and there were concerns that more fires could break out.

Gov. Josh Green of Hawaii said on Thursday that more than a thousand buildings had likely been destroyed by the fires, and that hundreds of families had been displaced.

“It’s going to be a long haul,” he said. He also said that the number of fatalities from the disaster would likely exceed the 61 people lost when a tsunami crashed into the Big Island in 1960, Hawaii’s deadliest natural disaster.

Six emergency shelters were open, and food, water, supplies and clothing will be distributed on Friday at the Ritz-Carlton Maui in Kapalua, Maui County said in an update early Friday.

Questions were mounting over whether officials had acted with enough urgency to evacuate Lahaina, where many people described harrowing escapes and said they had received no warnings. The authorities said that the blaze had moved so quickly that it was “nearly impossible” for emergency management officials to send out evacuation orders in time.

Passing showers were in the forecast for Friday.

New York Times News Service