Hawaiian Governor Josh Green said all responsibility was “on all of us”.
“And that is, we do what we can with the resources we have here far away from the mainland,” Green said.
“But this is the first time we’ve ever experienced this.”
Andrea Padilla lives just outside of Lahaina, where flames tore through the town on Tuesday in the state’s deadliest natural disaster since 1960.
Neighbourhoods obliterated by fires in historic Hawaiian town
Padilla, who is a manager of a local art gallery, said most people who lived near the gallery lost their homes.
“Their experience has been that they weren’t given any alerts,” Padilla told Today.
“Even as I was already on the other side of the island and was receiving texts from them saying they were seeing flames… yet there was nothing on the news.
“There were no emergency alerts on our phones. So I think that everybody was caught off guard.”
She said Hawaiians in general stuck together.
”We help each other out… it’s very much aloha spirit here to help people out.”
Fuelled by a dry summer and strong winds from a passing hurricane, at least three wildfires erupted on Maui this week, racing through parched brush covering the island.
Satellite imagery lays bare devastation in Hawaii
The most serious one left Lahaina a grid of grey, ashen rubble, wedged between the blue ocean and lush green slopes.
Skeletal remains of buildings bowed under roofs that pancaked in the blaze.
Palm trees were torched, boats in the harbour were scorched and the stench of burning lingered.
Previously Hawaii Emergency Management Agency spokesperson Adam Weintraub told The Associated Press that the department’s records don’t show that Maui’s warning sirens were triggered on Tuesday, when the Lahaina fire began.
Instead, the county used emergency alerts sent to mobile phones, televisions and radio stations, Weintraub said.
It’s not clear if those alerts were sent before outages cut off most communication to Lahaina.
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