Authorities on the Hawaiian island of Maui say at least 53 people have been killed in wildfires.

US President Joe Biden has issued a declaration to ramp up the level of federal aid to affected areas.

Biden said, "We have just approved a major disaster declaration for Hawaii, which will get aid in the hands of the people desperately needing help now."

One of the fires ravaged the town of Lahaina, an economic and tourism hub. Over 2,000 people have been displaced. Local media say about 10,000 homes and businesses have been without power. Cellphone services have been cut in some areas.

A tourist from Los Angeles said, "We were pretty isolated and had no idea of what was going due to outages in cell service, TV and Internet."

He also said, "All we could see was sort of a smoke on the horizon."

Hawaii Governor Josh Green called the wildfires "the largest natural disaster in Hawaii's state history." He added that "it will take time to know the full extent" of the damage and that recovery will require many years.