In this riveting episode, we delve deep into the heart of the Maui Fire and a series of spine-chilling blazes that have engulfed homes, RVs, and lives. Join us as we untangle the enigmatic circumstances, and shed light on the dark forces behind these devastating fires. With expert analysis, we examine potential culprits, and explore the harrowing aftermath of these infernos that have forever changed the lives of those affected. Prepare to be captivated as we embark on a journey through flames and secrets, seeking answers to the burning questions surrounding these tragic incidents. * Listener discretion is advised as we delve into the gripping tale of the Maui Fire.
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0:06 Welcome to Pushing Up Lilies.
0:08 I'm your host, Julie Mattson.
0:10 Pushing Up Lilies is a weekly true crime podcast with spine tingling, unusual and terrifyingly true stories from my perspective as a forensic death investigator and a sexual assault nurse examiner.
0:24 Do I have some stories for you?
0:26 Are you ready?
0:30 Ok.
0:31 Y'all, we're experiencing a little bit of a cold front today in Texas.
0:36 We, I think we're at 99 degrees this morning and I have to say it was nice to be able to actually go outside and breathe this morning.
0:46 I actually had to turn our air conditioner off for a little bit.
0:48 When I went outside.
0:49 I could feel a breeze.
0:50 It was pretty much amazing.
0:52 It's a break that we needed very much, but I am not going to complain because we all know that all around the world.
1:01 There are all kinds of things happening that are much worse than the Texas heat.
1:06 One thing that we all know is this past week in Maui, so far, at least 99 people were killed in the wildfires.
1:16 There, supposedly, only about 25% of the burn area has been searched.
1:22 Now, I'm not going to lie because in my history with the medical examiner's office, I would love more than anything to jump a plane and go to Maui and help in that search.
1:33 That would probably be so rewarding to actually assist families in, at least getting answers.
1:42 I know that a big problem has been that everyone's been without cell phone service.
1:47 The people who are alive don't have a way to call and get any kind of assistance or let people know that they're alive.
1:56 There's still a lot of searching going on and it just sounds horrifying.
2:01 It's actually the deadliest us wildfire in more than a century and in the next 10 days as they continue this search, they are saying that the number of dead could double.
2:14 I can only imagine what the families are going through again, not to have had access to cell phone service, not to have had power.
2:24 It has to be horrifying.
2:26 Most of the people found after the fires had actually been in the water or in cars or out in the open and not actually in a residence.
2:39 It's unlikely that people who are in homes or were in cars when it went through survived at all.
2:47 If they were alive in the beginning, their injuries probably would not allow them to sustain life for very long without medical care.
2:56 The fires actually began on August 8th and nine people have actually been admitted to the burn unit.
3:04 At the hospital in Honolulu, they're having some DNA issues because of the need for DNA from families.
3:16 Everyone with a missing family member is urged to provide DNA to help with identification.
3:24 That's just because I mean, everyone always asks us at the medical examiner's office.
3:30 Why don't you just do DNA?
3:32 Well, that's great.
3:33 But you have to have somebody else's DNA to compare it to.
3:38If there has not been DNA collected from a family member, there's no way to link those two people.
3:47 It sounds easy.
3:49 Of course, we do dentals as well.
3:53 And people always ask me, why don't you just compare their dental x-rays?
3:57 Well, you have to know who's missing and who their dentist was to compare dental x-rays to confirm that it's them.
4:05 So you have to have that second factor.
4:08 You can't just do DNA and figure out who it is.
4:13 You can't always do fingerprints to get identification.
4:18 If someone doesn't have a driver's license like a child, for example, then if they've never been to the dentist, we're going to resort to DNA.
4:28 But we do, you have to have a DNA sample from mom or dad or a sibling to actually confirm that it is that person.
4:35 It becomes a little more difficult.
4:38 And I think TV has made it look easier than it is, but they make a lot of things look a little bit more simple than they are in real life, but only three people could actually be identified by fingerprint.
4:54 It's common in fires though not to be able to get fingerprints.
4:58 The reason for that is because when they're burned, their fingers may be charred or they may even be gone because, you know, many times you find ashes and maybe even bones.
5:14 So you're not going to obviously be able to get prints off of that because of the extent of the injuries and the location of the injuries.
5:23 It's really difficult to get fingerprints and to get somebody identified by fingerprints again of the 99 which I doubt very few if any were able to be positively identified just by physically viewing them, only three of them could actually be ID ed by prints.
5:44 They're really sad thing is too that if families are relying on dental records, many of the dentist offices are also involved in the fires and those records may not be as readily available as they would have been previously.
6:00 It complicates things a lot.
6:03 These issues with DNA are coming up and beginning to be a problem again, everyone with a missing family member is urged to provide a DNA sample.
6:14 Now, more than 2200 structures have been destroyed or damaged and 86% of those are residential structures.
6:25 So 86% of those are homes and the other 14% are businesses.
6:32 Now, shelters are emptying because gradually over time, people are opening their homes to those who have been displaced.
6:41 Airbnb’s are offering their facilities for those displaced and also hotel rooms have become a little more available.
6:50 It is believed that power lines blown over by the high winds actually helped cause the fire.
6:58 And of course, the high winds caused the fires to spread a lot faster than they normally would.
7:04 And I don't know if y'all have read much on it, but I have read that this space snuck up on everybody.
7:10 I mean, it's like you see smoke, you smell fire, you walk out your front door and there it is, there's nothing you can do to prevent that.
7:18 There's nothing you can do to halt that.
7:21 There's basically no place to go.
7:23 I mean, if you can't get outside your door, there is no place to go and there's not a lot that you can do to slow it down at all.
7:32 There's also, I guess over time it had been reported that there's weak water pressure in the hydrants.
7:41 I think they said that there had been issues with water on the island for a long time and 400 alarms that were in the area that were designed to alert residents to tsunamis and other disasters actually did not activate.
8:00 And the reason for that is probably because again, high winds and lack of power in the area in 2021 3800 people died from fires, which is an increase of 58% from 2020 more than half of all the home fire deaths actually occur between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. And so, I was kind of reading on that and they actually said that while you're asleep you don't smell.
8:36 And what they say is that you don't respond to odors when you're in the dreaming phase of sleep or rem you know, that's one of the main reasons for the smoke alarms is because we may not wake up to the odors.
8:51 But if we have an alarm that goes off, we're actually going to hear it.
8:55 They did do studies and people did actually wake up from hearing a tone other than smelling smells.
9:04 They have done research on that.
9:06 That is one reason why we have smoke alarms because you can't always smell while you're sleeping.
9:13 Now, of course, the best thing to do is always plan an escape route because of the increase of tiny homes and RV living because who can afford a house right now and the interest rates are crazy.
9:28 People are living in smaller places.
9:30 People are living in maybe RVS with one door and there are emergency exits, but a lot of people may not know how to utilize them.
9:40 If you haven't like planned ahead and taught your Children how to get out of those emergency exits, then those people would be trapped.
9:50 It's really hard to or impossible to climb out an RV window.
9:55 If you don't know how to activate that emergency latch smoke and toxic gasses actually kill more people than the flames do because of the amount of smoke in the residence.
10:08 They're actually going to die from smoke inhalation before the flames actually get to them.
10:15 So, poisonous gases are produced and they're going to cause you to be disoriented and become drowsy, which may cause you to pass out before the flames actually get to you.
10:27 Asphyxiation is the leading cause of flames.
10:30 And I know about a month ago I did a big podcast episode on asphyxiation and the different kinds of deaths caused by asphyxiation.
10:41 It's going to be the leading cause of deaths during a fire.
10:45 Flames and burns are going to account for about 30% of deaths and injuries.
10:52 The sad thing is about seven people die in house fires every day.
10:59 And California actually leads the country in the most wildfires.
11:06 I've worked a lot of fire deaths again.
11:09 I was talking about trailers and RV’s and small homes.
11:13 I've worked a lot of fire deaths in trailers.
11:16 I had one fairly recently where the resident was a hoarder.
11:22 It would have been very difficult for him to escape through any of the windows and he definitely would have had a difficult time making it to the door because of the number of items that were in front of the doorway.
11:37 He was elderly and probably wasn't in the best health that makes it even more difficult when you already have issues walking much less climbing over things that are in your way that might somehow slow you down.
11:54 The trailer was very full of many things, and these are large items that made it extremely hard for him to move around and to actually get out.
12:06 Also, I've had a trailer fire where the resident was a double amputee.
12:15 It's so sad because he survived wars and was a veteran and had been through so much and had made it this far but was living in an RV.
12:27 There were multiple small space heaters in the RV.
12:32 I don't know if it was ignited by a blanket in front of the space heater, but you can only imagine how difficult it would have been for him to escape being a double amputee.
12:45 Now, one problem many times that we see, and we see this a lot also in poverty-stricken areas is that there are wires exposed, which put the residents at increased risk of catching fire.
13:01 A lot of people may be stealing electricity or hooking up to a neighbor's meter and those exposed wires are actually what increases the risk and also overloading circuits.
13:16 That can be a big problem.
13:19 Space heaters, hoarding, you know, different things cluttering the same thing as regular household.
13:25 But when you're in a smaller space like an RV or a tiny home, it's going to be more difficult.
13:32 Obviously, the fire may engulf quicker because it's a small space and makes it even more difficult to get out.
13:41 And I know years ago, and this is kind of a funny story.
13:44 But before I, ironically, before I ever went to nursing school, I worked as a clerk at a local power company, and I can't tell you how many people would come in with burns on their hands and face after they told us that they had tried to turn on their own electricity because we had turned them off for nonpayment.
14:08 It's not ever, you know, a smart thing to try to do that on your own because burns are painful.
14:14 I mean, I can only imagine, I burned the tip of my finger y'all and I feel like I'm dying.
14:18 I can't imagine being burned over 50% of my body and having to go through the treatments that people go through, it just looks horrifying.
14:27 I always hate to whenever I go to a fire, and I see people huddled where it's obvious that they finally realize that there was no way out and all you can do basically at that point is sit down and then probably asphyxiate on the fumes and the smoke and then eventually it just overtakes you.
14:51 I've seen a couple of people actually in their showers.
14:55 I'm assuming that your natural instinct would kick in and maybe you would get in the shower and turn the water on.
15:03 Of course, the water is going to eventually stop running because the fire engulfs the home and then the water stops and the obvious still happens.
15:12 But it's always so sad when I see people in a shower too because I feel like they were really probably trying to do what they could to survive.
15:23 Now, soot is going to stain the mucus lining of the trachea.
15:30 A lot of times on autopsy is the stained mucus lining and the soiling of the NAS.
15:37 And that's how we know that there has been smoke, inhaled and that the person was still alive when the fire started.
15:47 I know that in a lot of cases, if it's a homicide, someone may kill somebody and then leave them in a residence and then catch the residence on fire.
15:57 And that's how the doctors know on autopsy if the person was already dead or not is they look at the trachea lining and they look at the inside of the nose to see if there's any so staining to see if they actually took a breath during the fire.
16:16 As far as identification, I know we talked a little about DNA, but teeth are also essential for identification because skin tissue and body fluids are all going to be destroyed.
16:29 But some people who may have underlying diseases are going to be at increased risk during a fire because if they have heart disease specifically, then that's going to cause their body to be a little more compromised in the case of a fire.
16:50 And I think it's interesting too. Back on the subject of homicides, you know, we do find that a lot of people may try to cover up evidence and try to trick everybody into thinking that the person died in a house fire instead of them killing them first and then catching the house on fire.
17:09 So the criminals are not super intelligent as we have all learned over the years and we've seen on TV.
17:16 But they don't understand, I think what an autopsy entails, they think that everybody's just going to take it for what it is and assume what happened instead of actually fully investigating.
17:32 Like I've always said dumb criminals are really fun to catch because they're the ones that we catch more frequently and they're not super intelligent, they only know what they know.
17:43 And so they haven't really tried to determine the best way to get away with something.
17:49 They just assume that everyone is stupid.
17:52 Now an autopsy, skin slippage occurs and that again is going to interfere with fingerprint identification.
18:03 So again, it's important to make sure if any teeth can be located that those are removed from the scene.
18:14 And also that DNA is obtained from family members of the person that we assume the descendant to be car crash injuries or incineration actually is also a big issue.
18:33 And I've had not too long ago, a car accident where the person driving, the vehicle was alone and survived the accident and was actually seen by the police and the fire department trying to break out the back window when the car was engulfed in flames.
18:54 He obviously didn't have immediate life-threatening injuries, but because the car caught fire, he was engulfed in flames and actually burned to death in the vehicle.
19:08 Now, I am not really bothered by smells.
19:13 Everyone makes fun of me because I actually enjoy going on scenes where the body is decomposed.
19:19 And I think it's because it's a little more of a challenge for me to try to find trauma on the body.
19:25 And I actually look at them very closely, but fire victims actually have a very distinct smell.
19:35 And to me, it is worse than a decomposed body.
19:41 I don't know what it is, but you can definitely smell something different.
19:47 It smells different than just a regular like house burning.
19:50 It's, it's a very odd pungent smell and it's actually more offensive to me than a decomposed body.
19:58 Also, something else I thought of is Children tend to hide rather than escape if they see a fire.
20:07 And so we will also often see Children huddled in a residence or in a building where there is a fire.
20:18 So not everything is a straightforward case.
20:23 That's why it's very important that we as death investigators observe how the body is found.
20:30 And that's one reason why we always ask that the fire department and the police do not move a body until we get there, even though we do have their photos for documentation.
20:44 Our doctors like for us to take our own photographs and sometimes something might be in mind that helps the police, something that they didn't get and vice versa.
20:58 It's always good to kind of have a backup plan, but we like to observe the body as it is found in the position that it's found.
21:07 And typically we will take turns taking photos with the police as we move the body and get different angles and that kind of thing.
21:16 I just thought that it would be different to talk a little bit about fires, especially given all of the issues in Maui as of late and we are praying that they actually find the rest of these victims and give the families of the missing people some answers.
21:36 I was looking back at my stats and it's kind of exciting y'all.
21:41 I noticed that we have well over 10,000 subscribers now which thank you very much.
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22:38 Hopefully the heat will continue to give us a little bit of a break here in Texas this week.
22:43 But I do think this weekend the temperatures are going to rise back up, so everyone drink plenty of water and stay cool.
22:51 See you next week.
22:51 Bye.
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