Reuters, Honolulu :
Hawaii’s governor on Friday declared an emergency on the island of Maui, where firefighters were battling a blaze that forced the evacuations of thousands of people and sent huge clouds of smoke billowing over nearby beaches.
Although most of the evacuees were later allowed to return home, the blaze more than tripled in size to spread over about 9,000 acres (3,642 hectares), scorching mostly former sugarcane fields and brush.
“I am declaring our Valley Isle a disaster area for the purpose of implementing the emergency management functions as allowed by law,” Governor David Ige said in a statement.
The fire in Maui, sometimes called the Valley Isle, had been 60 percent contained by sunset but officials warned that even though the shelters were shut, they might need to reopen if more evacuations were ordered.
Authorities had also managed to contain about 35 percent of a second, smaller fire across roughly 200 acres (81 hectares), that had broken out north of the first near Kahului, forcing some voluntary evacuations.
The National Weather Service office in Hawaii posted a photo to Twitter showing smoke from the blaze as seen from an orbiting satellite.
