MAUI, HAWAII: Carole Hartley was one of the unfortunate souls who could not make it alive through the wildfire in the western part of Maui Island in Hawaii. As the fires slowly subside, the victims of the fire are getting identified too. One such victim was an Alabama woman by the name of Carole Hartley.
Who was Carole Hartley?
Carole Hartley was identified as a victim of the wildfire on Monday, August 14. She was a 60-year-old scuba-diving instructor and surfer. Hartley’s sister Donna Hartley confirmed the death of her sister through the news outlet FOX 10 News. She informed that her sister’s body was found from the wreckage of her home.
Donna described her sister as “beautiful" and added, “She had charisma, she was feisty, she was funny.”
“She went to school at Mobile County High in Grand Bay. She had a lot of friends, she’s very cordial, all about helping the underdog or helping people. She was more about helping people than even taking care of herself,” Hartley’s sister told the outlet..
An expert scuba driver and trainer, Hartley had worked in Marriot in Mobile and Marriott in California. She was living in Maui for 40 years where she met her partner of 23 years, Charles. Talking about Hartley's partner, Donna said, “Charles is a diesel mechanic, a well-known diesel mechanic. He worked on all the yachts and so forth out on the island.”
How was Maui fire victim Carole Hartley's body identified?
Donna recalled her husband giving her the news of the wildfire in Maui, “My husband called me to the living room and said Donna Jo, you need to come in here and watch the TV. He said ‘Maui is on fire.’”
She said she wasn’t aware of the fire before and as she watched the news on the television, she was stunned. She said, “I hadn’t talked to anybody, I hadn’t seen anything, I hadn’t been on Facebook, I knew nothing.”
Within seconds, she realized the area was exactly the location of her sister’s home in Lahaina as she said, “I said Lee, baby, this is Front Street, you see this street? And I walked it up on the TV - I said this is how you get to Carol. She is four blocks up, take a left and she is the fourth house on the left. It’s gone. Her house is gone.”
When she dialed Hartley and her partner Charles’ number, she could not reach her. Finally, when a person contacted her, she heard that Charles was found but was burned. “She told me they found Charles, but he was all burnt,” she said.
Charles later called Donna and broke the news to her, “He called me, and he couldn’t talk to me at first because he was emotional. He said 'I can’t find Carol. I can’t find Carol. I can’t find her and I’m not going to stop until I find her.'”
Hartley said Charles told her that he and Carole were advised to seek shelter from “hurricane winds”, but they had no idea what was coming for them.
Donna recounted, “He said they were bending down for hurricane winds. They’re used to this. So she started moving her plants inside, moving the cushions and chairs and bungee cords.”
Donna continued, “He said all of a sudden a lady starts screaming across the street, ‘help, help, I’ve got a fire coming up under the ground' and so he ran over there, stretched his water hose across the thing and they just start popping up. Everybody is screaming and Carol started screaming from the backyard saying, 'Charles I need you come Charles hurry Charles.”
When Charles tried to come back to their house, his visions were clouded by smoke. “The wind was so fierce that you can’t see nothing in front of you,” said Donna..
She continued, “He said, ‘I just took off and I ran to the water and I was hollering Carol baby just run, just keep running’. And then Carole was yelling ‘go Charles, go Charles’ so they were just communicating getting out by screaming because they couldn’t see each other.”
Charles later collapsed but was taken to the hospital by someone. When he came back to their home, he identified Carole’s charred body by the watch she was wearing, “He found her by her watch that she had on,” said Donna.
How many people have died in the Hawaii wildfire?
The death toll from the wildfire is close to 100, with authorities fearing it can rise, per FOX 10 News.
