More Missouri Task Force One members, dogs headed to Maui in search of human remains
COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)
The Boone County Fire Protection District announced in a Tuesday social media post that four more members of Missouri Task Force One will be heading to Maui to search for human remains.
Four Human Remains Detection K-9s and Task Force One members will head to St. Louis on Tuesday night before flying out to Hawaii in the morning. The department previously announced that two members were deployed last week. The new arrivals are expected to be deployed for up to two weeks, the post states.
Currently, there are two task forces, Washington Task Force 1 and Nevada Task Force 1 on the island and 20 other search K-9 teams, according to the post.
The Boone County Fire Protection District said in the past that the four K-9s are part of an additional 20 more search canines that were requested Tuesday afternoon.
"It's part of what our team does, and it's part of what we train for," said BCFD's Gale Blomenkamp. "It's not a fun mission, obviously, we know what we're going there for sending human remains detection canines so it's not a search and rescue type of situation, but it's something that needs it to be done."
"Matty is a Human Remains Detection dog, we also have live find dogs on the task force, but Matty specializes in that, and unfortunately with what's happened in Maui with the fires, that's our mission for this deployment," K-9 handler Cathy Shultz said.
Hawaii Gov. Josh Green said in a Tuesday press conference that 101 people have been confirmed dead. Wildfires ran rampant on the island last week. The wildfires have been described as one of the deadliest in U.S. history.
"One of my first ones (deployments) was Oklahoma for an F5 tornado, and then 9/11 was my second one after that, and then there have been many in between, and I think this one is going to be tough. These people did not have much warning and it came across so fast, unfortunately, there is probably going to be a lot of fatalities," Schultz said.
