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No Filipino has been killed or injured by wildfires on Hawaii’s Maui Island that turned entire neighborhoods into smoldering wastelands, according to the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA).
Hawaii authorities said the wildfire, which started on Tuesday and swept through Maui, had climbed to more than 50 as of Friday, forcing thousands of residents and tourists to evacuate.
“No foreign nationals were reported affected, including Filipinos,” Foreign Undersecretary Eduardo de Vega said during the Laging Handa briefing, citing information from Consul General Emil Fernandez and the Hawaii government.
De Vega said the government has been monitoring the situation and “the good news is that no Filipinos have been affected so far.”
In a Facebook post, the Philippine Consulate in Honolulu advised Filipinos to “take precautions, evacuate their homes if ordered, and to regularly monitor updates from local authorities.”
The Consulate provided an emergency hotline, (808) 253-9446, in case Filipinos needed assistance.
According to a report by the University of Hawaii in 2011, the 2000 US Census said Filipinos and part-Filipinos constituted 275,728, or nearly 23 percent, of the Hawaii population. About 70 percent of the them lived on the island of O’ahu.
The terrifying wildfire that left the historic Maui town of Lahaina in charred ruins has killed at least 55 people, making it one of the deadliest disasters in the US state’s history, Hawaiian authorities said on Thursday.
Brushfires on the west coast of Hawaii’s Maui island—fueled by high winds from a nearby typhoon—broke out Tuesday and rapidly engulfed the seaside town.
The flames moved so quickly that many were caught off-guard, trapped in the streets or jumping into the ocean in a desperate bid to escape.
“It really looks like somebody came along and just bombed the whole town. It’s completely devastated,” said Canadian Brandon Wilson, who had traveled to Hawaii with his wife to celebrate their 25th anniversary, but was at the airport trying to get them a flight out.
“It was really hard to see,” he said, teary-eyed.
