A makeshift memorial honoring the victims killed in the Aug. 8 fires and those who remain missing is seen in Lahaina on Aug. 29. (Tamir Kalifa/The Washington Post)
Police on Maui have identified the 100th and final known victim of the blaze that swept through Lahaina in August, in the deadliest wildfire to hit the United States in more than a century.
In a statement Friday, Maui county and police department said they had identified Lydia Coloma, 70, and informed her next of kin.
“It is with a heavy heart that the County of Maui and the Maui Police Department confirm the following identity of a victim involved in the West Maui Wildfire incident,” the statement said. “Our hearts go out to the families, friends, and community affected by this devastating event.”
According to the Associated Press, police said they identified Coloma based on the location of the remains, rather than through DNA or other positive identification methods.
Coloma, who was Filipina and lived in Lahaina, was the ninth member of her family to be confirmed dead, the Honolulu Civil Beat reported.
Coloma’s sister-in-law, Tina Acosta, said she did not know why identification had taken so long, telling the AP: “We were waiting.”
The scale and intensity of the fire has made identifying victims, or even confirming the number of people killed, extremely difficult.
“The remains we are finding are through a fire that melted metal,” Maui Police Chief John Pelletier said in the days after the blaze, as he asked for the public’s patience while DNA tests were conducted on human remains.
Officials revised the confirmed death toll from 115 to 97 in mid-September following more precise testing that revealed some body bags contained human remains belonging to the same people. The figure rose slightly over the following month as some people died of their injuries or police discovered further remains, according to the AP.
The latest estimated death toll is 100, with all 100 individuals identified and their families notified, Maui county said in its Friday statement.
At one point after the fire, almost 400 people were reported missing or unaccounted for following the disaster. However, that number went down as individuals were located alive, or their remains were identified. Now, just three people remain on the list of people unaccounted for, according to police: Paul Kasprzycki, Robert H. Owens and Elmer Lee Stevens.
The wildfire on Maui - believed to have been sparked at least in part by fallen power lines and spread by high winds and months of drought - razed the historic city of Lahaina on Aug. 8.
Several months later, the community still needs to rebuild, and faces difficult challenges - including a housing shortage for survivors, and disagreement over where to dump the toxic ash and debris from the disaster.
Last week, The Post reported, survivors from the city gathered together to mourn, in an event known as the Lahaina Unity Gathering. Thousands marched along a four-mile route and congregated at a beach park, where they shared stories, sang, danced and chanted for those who had died in the fire.
“Lahaina is my beloved town,” Buddy Greig, who was born and raised in Lahaina and now lives temporarily in a vacation rental on the south of the island, told The Washington Post. “This means the world. It’s like the beginning of the healing.”
