Tourists have been warned to stay away from Hawaii’s devastated Maui Island as the wildfire death toll reached 93, making it the deadliest in the US in more than a century.

As Hawaiians sifted through the ash of their homes and searched for loved ones, tourists were seen swimming in the same ocean where people had died.

One resident said the island was living two realities — the horror of the fire aftermath versus those having a holiday.

“The same waters that our people just died in three days ago are the same waters the very next day these visitors — tourists — were swimming in,” one local told the BBC.

“That says a lot about where their heart and mind is through all of this, and where our heart and mind is now.

“Nobody is having fun in tragedy and continuing their lives as if nothing happened.

“There is two Hawaiis now. The Hawaii we’re living in and the Hawaii they’re living in.”

As the fire tore through the holiday town of Lahaina without warning last week, people were forced to jump into the ocean to escape the flames.

Aquaman star Jason Momoa has a message for tourists planning a Hawaiian holiday. Photo: Instagram

Hollywood actor Jason Momoa, a native Hawaiian, warned tourists to stay away, stating “DO NOT TRAVEL TO MAUI” in an Instagram post.

“Maui is not the place to have your vacation right now,” the Aquaman star wrote.

“Do not convince yourself that your presence is needed on an island that is suffering this deeply.

“Mahalo to everyone who has donated and shown aloha to the community in this time of need.”

The death toll is likely to rise even further in coming days as search teams with cadaver dogs scour the ruins of the historic town of Lahaina which was burned to the ground.

The dogs, trained to detect bodies, have covered only three per cent of the search area, Maui County Police Chief John Pelletier said.

Sirens failed

Officials vowed to examine the state’s emergency notification systems as it was revealed sirens stationed around the island — intended to warn of impending natural disasters — never sounded.

Widespread power and cellular outages hampered other forms of alerts.

Some residents questioned whether more could have been done to warn them before the fire overtook their homes. Some were forced to wade into the Pacific Ocean to escape.

The state’s attorney general, Anne Lopez, said she was launching a review of the decision-making before and during the fire, while Hawaii Governor Josh Green told CNN he had authorised a review of the emergency response.

Officials have described a nightmarish confluence of factors — including communications network failures, wind gusts of up to 130km/h from an offshore hurricane and a separate wildfire dozens of miles away — that made it nearly impossible to coordinate in real time with the emergency management agency that would typically issue warnings and evacuation orders.

“Over time, we’ll be able to figure out if we could have better protected people,” said Mayor Green. He said the multiple fires and dangerous winds created extraordinarily difficult conditions.

The scale of the damage came into sharper focus, four days after a fast-moving blaze levelled the historic resort town, obliterating buildings and melting cars.

The cost to rebuild Lahaina was estimated at $US5.5 billion ($8.5 billion), according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)

More than 2200 structures were damaged or destroyed and more than 850 hectares burned.

The death toll made the inferno, which erupted on Tuesday (local time) Hawaii’s worst natural disaster, surpassing a tsunami that killed 61 people in 1960, a year after Hawaii became a US state.

The latest figure exceeded the 85 people who perished in a 2018 fire in the town of Paradise, California, and was the highest toll from a wildfire since 1918, when the Cloquet fire in Minnesota and Wisconsin claimed 453 lives.

Officials have secured 1000 hotel rooms for people who lost their homes and are arranging for rental properties to serve as housing at no cost to families, Green said. More than 1400 people had been taken in at emergency shelters.

Deanne Criswell, the FEMA director, said the agency had 150 people on the ground and that additional search teams and dogs would be arriving within a day or two.

Authorities began allowing residents back into west Maui on Friday, although the fire zone in Lahaina remained barricaded. Officials warned there could be toxic fumes from smouldering areas and said search operations were continuing.

Hundreds of people were still missing, though a precise count was not clear.

At a family assistance centre in Kahului, June Lacuesta said he was trying to locate nine relatives who had not been heard from since Tuesday.

“When I see Lahaina town itself, I cannot describe the feelings I get,” said Lacuesta, who was headed to a church shelter next to continue his search.