Santa Barbara County sheriff’s Lt. Jarrett Morris got word Aug. 14 that he was going to Maui to help identify the remains of Lahaina fire victims. Two days later, he arrived in Maui, where he spent two weeks helping with community education and working with families to get back their lost loved ones.
The Lahaina fire broke out Aug. 8 and scorched 10.4 square miles. Authorities have confirmed 115 deaths, and several hundred people are still reported missing.
Morris responded to Maui as part of a California mutual aid effort to help bring closure to the families of victims, and give names to people who were burned beyond recognition.
He traveled to Maui along with the ANDE rapid DNA system. The equipment can take just a drop of someone’s blood or their fingerprint along with the DNA of a family member and can get a DNA match in just a few hours.
His first experience with the system was when he helped identify the victims of the Conception dive boat fire, which claimed the lives of 34 people on Labor Day in 2019 near Santa Cruz Island. Using the rapid DNA system allowed the Coroner’s Bureau to identify the victims within 10 days.
Morris said he changed his approach in Maui to work with the community. Instead of his uniform, he donned shorts and a T-shirt and brought the equipment right to the people.
“One evening we went to a community meeting, but it looked more like a block party-type event,” Morris said. “Everybody brought food and we set up the instrument there, and I would run demos to show them how it worked.”
The amount of DNA needed to match victims with their living relatives is significantly less than what is needed for a 23andMe test or Ancestry DNA, according to Morris. He spent a lot of time in Maui talking to residents about their concerns and the misinformation around DNA sampling.
“There’s a lot of clearing that up and a lot of just sitting down and having conversations over food with community leaders, spiritual leaders and citizens that had questions,” he said.
The ANDE rapid DNA system was made to be deployed into Afghanistan to help identify people in areas that had been bombed or destroyed. The first time the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office used it was for the investigation of the Conception dive boat disaster, and the county purchased its own device shortly after. It even deployed the device to a helicopter crash site to identify victims, including Kobe Bryant, in 2020.
“We use it regularly to help identify people that aren’t otherwise identifiable by fingerprints, by dental records, by photos or by family members identifying them for us,” Morris told Noozhawk. “It’s an amazing tool for us to use and have available to us.”
The machine is designed so that anyone, anywhere in the world can use it. Morris said he went through two days of training from DNA scientists to use the machine.
Morris said the experience in Maui got him out of his comfort zone. He had to adjust to a new culture and work without the resources that he would usually have when working in California.
“I think professionally, it was good to see what it was like from a full operational perspective of what it looks like when I don’t have the resources that we have here in California,” he said.
Since returning to Santa Barbara, Morris has continued helping officials in Maui by answering questions and providing any knowledge that he can.
“I’m glad I got to work with the people of Lahaina and the people in Maui and provide my expertise and that Santa Barbara County got to share their resources,” Morris said. “My heart goes out to the family members in Lahaina and to the county of Maui. They are going to be dealing with this for years and they have a lot of work ahead of them.”
