For decades, state military officials have used DNA to help identify soldiers and sailors missing in action. Now, the Identification Laboratory located at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam has been tapped to assist in Lāhainā wildfire recovery efforts.
Teams of forensic anthropologists, X-ray technicians, dentists and more have been combing through the town — which many say looks like a war zone.
Dr. John Byrd, director of the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, was trained as a forensic anthropologist and has worked around the world, including on the Twin Towers site of the 9/11 terrorist attack on the U.S.
"We have the capability to work with human remains that are what most forensic practitioners would call residual, meaning that there's not a whole lot left and more conventional methods of identification are no longer viable," Byrd said.
Earlier this month, the state Department of Human Services sent a rapid response mortuary team out with X-ray machines to Lāhainā. Bryd said Wednesday is their last day in the field.
"They've been here since the early days after the fire, but their team will pull out and we will we are 'plussing up' the support to the medical examiner to fill in any gaps that that may create," he said.
Byrd said he thinks it might take a couple of weeks for teams like his to go through the rubble. But the list of missing people is much smaller than when it began.
"We're going to start working through that list where we have specific locations that we can go to, and do this very intensive search," Byrd said.
"And if the list stabilizes, then it becomes easier for us to project how long it's going to take."
This interview aired on The Conversation on Aug. 30, 2023. The Conversation airs weekdays at 11 a.m. on HPR-1.
