A summer of ferocious weather across much of the United States has now yielded the nation’s deadliest wildfires in more than a century, 2,500 miles off the West Coast in Hawaii.

What began as scattered brush fires on the state’s biggest islands, Hawaii and Maui, turned deadly by the middle of last week. By Tuesday, more than 100 people had been confirmed dead. Gov. Josh Green, in an interview with CBS News on Monday, said that the number of people missing had been reduced to around 1,300, from more than 2,000.

The rapid spread of the flames caught state officials and residents by surprise, and the Maui Emergency Management Agency estimated that it will cost $5.52 billion to rebuild in Maui County.

The death toll is likely to rise.

The massive death toll makes the fire damage one of the worst natural disasters in Hawaii’s history, and the nation’s deadliest wildfires since a blaze in northeast Minnesota killed hundreds of people in 1918.

Gov. Josh Green of Hawaii, a Democrat, told CBS News that crews exploring the site of the worst devastation could find the remains of 10 to 20 victims per day until they finish. “And it’s probably going to take 10 days,” he said. He said that it is impossible to guess the final death toll.

The fires have already taken more lives than a 1960 tsunami that killed 61 people on the island of Hawaii, also known as the Big Island, and the death toll could rise as rescuers travel to parts of the state that have been blocked by fires or by closed roads.

Dozens of people have also been injured, some critically. A precise death toll may not be known for weeks.

As of Monday afternoon, only three of the deceased victims had been identified by their fingerprints, said Chief John Pelletier of the Maui Police Department. The department plans on Tuesday to begin releasing the names of those who have been identified, and whose families have been notified.

What caused the fires?

No single cause has been determined, but experts said one possibility was that active power lines that fell in high winds ignited the wildfire that ultimately consumed Lahaina, a coastal town of 13,000 in western Maui that was leveled.

Brush fires were already burning on Maui and the island of Hawaii on Aug. 8. Maui County officials informed residents that morning that a small brush fire in Lahaina had been completely contained, but issued an alert several hours later that described “an afternoon flareup” that forced evacuations.

The fires on the islands were stoked by a combination of low humidity and strong mountain winds, brought by Hurricane Dora, a Category 4 storm hundreds of miles to the south in the Pacific Ocean.

Multiple law firms have begun filing lawsuits on behalf of fire victims, claiming that Hawaiian Electric, the state’s largest utility and the parent company of the power provider on Maui, is at fault for having power equipment that could not withstand heavy winds and keeping power lines electrified despite warnings of high winds.

At a news conference on Monday, Shelee Kimura, the chief executive of Hawaiian Electric, said the company did not have a shut-off program and contended that cutting the power could have created problems for people using medical equipment that runs on electricity. She also said turning off the power would have required coordination with emergency workers.

Reflecting the potential economic fallout from the disaster, the company saw its share price drop by roughly 40 percent in early trading on Wall Street on Monday.

Worsening drought conditions in recent weeks probably also contributed. Nearly 16 percent of Maui County was in a severe drought on Tuesday, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor.

The town of Lahaina suffered the most damage.

The fires were most intense along the western coast of Maui, which is generally drier and receives less rain.

Lahaina, once the royal capital of Hawaii, was devastated, and some residents there ran into the ocean to avoid the heat and flames. Survivors described fleeing for their lives from a fast-moving “total inferno.”

The blaze in Lahaina damaged more than 2,200 structures — the vast majority of which were residential — and burned 2,170 acres, according to the Pacific Disaster Center, a research center managed by the University of Hawaii.

Wildfires in the state are getting worse.

The area burned by wildfires in Hawaii each year has quadrupled in recent decades. Declining rainfall and rising temperatures have left the islands more susceptible to blazes, climatologists say.

Invasive grasses that are highly flammable have crowded out native vegetation in some areas, and climate change has worsened dry and hot conditions in the state, allowing wildfires to spread more quickly.

What’s next?

After the horror and chaos of the fires comes a new universe of uncertainties surrounding what comes next.

Days after the disaster, frustrated residents in West Maui said that they were receiving far more help from an ad hoc network of volunteers than they were from the government.

After the fire destroyed the town of Lahaina, hundreds of local residents — a group that includes evacuees along with nearby residents who found themselves cut off from power and internet service — remained affected in West Maui, miles beyond the highway checkpoints. Some evacuees slept in parks; others stayed in their own homes that survived the disaster or with friends in the wider community of that part of the island.

Many of the early relief efforts were ad hoc ones, including individuals bringing food and aid in their own boats to those most in need.

But county and federal aid efforts picked up somewhat on Monday. By Monday afternoon, more than 3,000 people had registered with FEMA for federal assistance, said Jeremy Greenberg, the director of the agency’s operations division, and about 60 FEMA officials were working near the shelters to help with registrations.

The amount of destruction and death, on an island far from the continental United States with battered communications, meant that rebuilding — and coordinating the resources to manage it — will be a staggering challenge.

“Wildfires behave in erratic ways, and they can spread much more quickly than emergency managers have an ability to control,” said Alice Hill, a senior disaster preparedness official who worked in several positions during the Obama administration.

Reporting was contributed by Claire Moses, Kellen Browning, Eileen Sullivan, Jacey Fortin and Derrick Bryson Taylor.