The work is vitally important, with families desperate to know the fate of their relatives – and to have a chance to say goodbye.
Inside a temporary morgue near the Maui County coroner's office, a team of specialists – including forensic pathologists, X-ray technicians, fingerprint experts and forensic dentists – labor 12 hours a day to identify the charred remains of the victims of this month's cataclysmic wildfire.
They are members of the federal Disaster Mortuary Operational Response Team program, or DMORT, deployed when a mass fatality incident overwhelms local authorities.