The fires began burning early Tuesday, putting homes, businesses and utilities at risk, as well as more than 35,000 people on the island of Maui, the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency said in a statement.
The fires have burned more than 2,000 acres (800 hectares) of land, it said.
"As the firefighting efforts continue, 36 total fatalities have been discovered today amid the active Lahaina fire," the Maui county government said in a statement.
"High, gusty winds and dry conditions put much of Hawai'i under a Red Flag Warning that ended late Wednesday, and more fires were burning on the Big Island and Maui," according to the state emergency agency.
US Coast Guard officers pulled at least a dozen people from the water as emergency services were overwhelmed by a disaster that appeared to have erupted almost without warning.
More than 270 buildings have been damaged or destroyed in the seriously affected town of Lahaina, officials said earlier on Wednesday.
"Much of Lahaina on Maui has been destroyed and hundreds of local families have been displaced," said Governor Josh Green of the 12,000-resident historic town, which is popular with tourists.
Video posted on social media showed blazes tearing through the heart of the beachfront town and sending up huge plumes of black smoke.
"People are jumping into the water to avoid the fire," US Army Major General Kenneth Hara, the state adjutant general, told Hawaii News Now.
-- Stranded travelers, federal aid --
Visitors to Maui were asked by county officials to leave the island "as soon as possible," with buses organized to shuttle travelers from a hotel to Kahului Aiport in trips that started Wednesday afternoon, according to a statement on the County of Maui's official Facebook page.
"Due to limited resources in this time of crisis, visitors with vehicles or any means of transportation are being asked to leave Lahaina and Maui as soon as possible," the county said.
But many travelers were stranded at the Kahului Airport late Wednesday, due to canceled and delayed flights, with some seen by an AFP journalist left sleeping on the floor.
The US military has deployed three helicopters to help fight the fires, and others to assist search and rescue operations, the US Indo-Pacific Command said in a statement.
Military helicopters aiding firefighting efforts dropped about 150,000 gallons (570,000 liters) of water in Maui County on Wednesday, state adjutant general Hara told a news conference, according to CNN.
"The primary focus is to save lives, and then to prevent human suffering, and then to mitigate great property loss," Hara told reporters.
Authorities were working to restore cellular communications across the island and distribute water, he added.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) approved a state request for federal funding to fight the wildfires, the state emergency management agency said.
The FEMA aid allows for "federal reimbursement of up to 75% of the eligible firefighting costs," it said.
-- 'People didn't get out' --
Lahaina resident Claire Kent said she had seen her neighborhood razed less than an hour after she fled.
"The flames had moved all the way down to the end of the neighborhood," she told CNN.
"We were pulling out... onto the highway, you look back and there's cars with flames on both sides of the road, people stuck in traffic trying to get out," Kent said, describing the dangerous scene as "something out of a horror movie.
"I know for a fact people didn't get out," she said, adding that homeless people and those without access to vehicles seemed to have been trapped.
A first responder who was in the town after the blaze swept through described a scene of devastation.
"As you drive down the road... either way you look, it's honestly just rubble," the person told AFP on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the press.
"It's ash and smoke and buildings just toppled over," they said.
"With how much charred materials there were... I don't think much is alive in there."
Chrissy Lovitt told the Hawaii News Now that every boat in Lahaina Harbor had burned.
"It looks like something out of a movie, a war movie," Lovitt said. "The water was on fire from the fuel in the water."
Sylvia Luke, the state's lieutenant governor, said the fires were caused by dry conditions and fanned by powerful winds from Hurricane Dora, which was churning hundreds of miles south of the islands, but not expected to make landfall.
Almost 11,000 people were without power on Maui as of late Wednesday, according to tracking website PowerOutage.us.
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