“What sticks to your clothes isn’t just ashes. They are the remains of our loved ones”: the difficult search and identification of the more than 100 dead in the devastating fires in Hawaii

Nearly a week after devastating wildfires ravaged the Hawaiian island of Maui, the exact death toll is still unknown.

the families of about 1,300 missing they anxiously await their own news, while body-sniffing dogs scan the charred disaster area.

The number of confirmed deaths – there are already more than 100 – is expected to gradually increase.

Hawaii Governor Josh Green announced Monday that it could take up to 10 days to come up with an accurate figure that researchers could find “between 10 and 20 people per dayprobably until they are done” with their work.

The long identification process

According to Adam Weintraub, communications director for the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency, only three deaths had been identified as of August 15.

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Victim identification specialists told the BBC to confirm the names of the rest of the deceased on Maui it can take months or even years.

Both finding and identifying the victims will be a difficult task due to the extent of the destruction and the conditions in which many of the remains are likely to be found.

Describing the tragic reality of the situation at the scene, Maui County Police Chief John Pelletier told reporters that “It’s not just ashes on the clothes you take off. They are our loved ones”.

“The tricky part is the collection,” said Daniele Podini, an associate professor of forensic molecular biology at George Washington University.

“Finding the right samples, identifying the next of kin, creating a database for all the relatives of the missing, and then comparing the results of the samples against that database… It’s a combination of everything.”

Chris Milroy, a professor of pathology and laboratory medicine at the University of Ottawa, explained that in the case of Hawaii, many of these scientific methods can be complicated by destruction in the area.

“Due to the fire and the interruption of government services, they may not be able to obtain dental records. Perhaps some of them were also destroyed by the fire,” says Milroy, who has experience with forensic police investigations in the UK and war crimes in the Balkans.

“So that method may not be valid for many of the people,” he said.

Evidence destroyed by fire

The academic also pointed it out high temperatures could have destroyed fingerprints of some victims.

Evidence may also have been erased that would allow researchers to link a person to a medical device such as a hip replacement or pacemaker, or fragments from which DNA samples could be taken.

“The main thing you’re looking at is DNA,” but “you also need people you can compare it to,” he said.

“You could have something like siblings who passed away and confirm they are related, but you can’t tell which brother is whichunless you have other circumstantial evidence,” he concluded.

Visual identification by family members is considered unreliable, as is the discovery of personal belongings, such as bags or wallets, along with finds of human remains.

“There’s a problem with the mixing of elements and debris that can fragment,” Milroy said.

“And since most of the (deceased) people’s bodies were probably damaged by the fire, it may happen that a family member is so stunned by the event that they say yes, and then it’s not true. Therefore, scientific methods are preferable,” he warned.

The key role of dogs

Dogs specially trained to find corpses play a key role in the search.

These dogs can move through the rubble without causing further destruction and use their keen sense of smell to sniff out human remains, even those who have been reduced to ashes that would be difficult to detect with the naked eye.

An additional 20 Federal Emergency Management Agency dogs have been deployed to the area, although the amount of time they can work each day is limited by the high temperatures and the need for rest periods.

Although the work in Hawaii is complicated, it is not uncommon for the identification of the deceased to take a long time in case of fire and other calamities.

For example, in 2017, after a fire destroyed the 24-storey Grenfell Tower in London, it took about five months for research to conclusively identify all 72 fatalities.

After removing visible fragments from the crime scene, investigators had to use small towels and gauze filters to find smaller, harder-to-spot human remains.

And in the United States, some of the remains recovered from the World Trade Center towers after the September 11, 2001 attacks are still being identified. In that case, the remains of about 40% of the deceased have yet to be identified.

Mike Marciano, a forensic scientist and professor at Syracuse University in New York, is confident that the Hawaii investigation will receive federal and other state funding.

This could include help from the DNA identification laboratory of the US Army He usually takes on the task of identifying the remains of soldiers missing since World War II.

The lab has a facility at the Pearl Harbor-Hickam base, on the nearby island of Oahu.

Still, the scientist pointed out, the process will be slow.

“It will be a process that will take much longer than weeks. I would say months, but it all depends on resources,” he predicted.

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