Lahaina wants closure. Authorities plead for patience.

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Commander Frank Sebastian heads the federal Disaster Mortuary Operational Response Team in Lahaina, Hawaii.

Claire Harbage/NPR

LAHAINA, Hawaii — In the burn zone of Lahaina, the search and recovery effort continues in the wake of the deadliest U.S. wildfire in more than 100 years. The work is necessarily painstaking and slow, even as families still missing loved ones remain in anguish, waiting for answers.

Commander Frank Sebastian of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is leading a federal team of more than two dozen pathologists, forensic dentists and coroners who have mobilized here from around the U.S. to help the overwhelmed Maui County coroner’s office.

Hurricane force winds whipped the flames from tinder-dry brushland on Maui into whole neighborhoods that now infamous day of August 8th. It’s a huge challenge trying to make IDs when the fire incinerated so much evidence.

“In this case that’s a pretty difficult task due to the condition of the remains,” Sebastian says. “When you’re dealing with burns you have a lot of destruction of tissue. It becomes a very painstaking process to reassemble that.”

If they’re lucky, they have DNA samples to work off or dental records given to the teams by families of those who are unaccounted for.

But the work is long, arduous and grim, even for veterans of the team who’ve responded to scores other deadly wildfires and Hurricane Katrina.

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