WAILUKU >> An updated list of people unaccounted for in the wake of the deadly Aug. 8 Lahaina wildfire is due to be released today, and Gov. Josh Green said he expects the number to have dropped to “the lower double digits” — and perhaps below 50 — from the 388 names first released Aug. 24.

The official “validated” list is compiled by the FBI and released to the public weekly by the Maui Police Department. The names of the unaccounted for are deemed validated only if first and last names are provided along with verified contact information for the reporting person.

Other crowdsourced lists that were generated in the absence of official information on possible fire victims in the immediate aftermath of the disaster have varying numbers of those who have yet to be located. One of the earliest and most used, Maui Fires People Locator, showed 333 people as “not located” as of Thursday. Unlike the FBI’s validated list, it lists unsheltered people and others known only by their first names.

Appearing Thursday on CNN’s “The Lead With Jake Tapper,” Green said: “The number of people that actually filed missing reports was closer to 112 or 115 to the Maui authorities. And of those individuals, a substantial number — more than half — were immediately found either to be tragically lost to the fire or discovered, and some in the hospital. So I think we’re going to hear a number in the lower double digits tomorrow, hopefully under 50.

“It’s not much consolation because our hearts are broken that we lost 115 people for sure,” he said. “But it is something that we are grateful that it’s not 800 or 1,000 like people were projecting earlier. But tomorrow we should have a much tighter number for everyone.”

Green offered much the same message on his Facebook page Thursday: “We’re heartsick but we’re still seeing the number of unaccounted-for individuals drop. We’re going to get a big update tomorrow, and pending that update we think the numbers dropped down into the double digits. So thank God.”

Maui County and MPD officials did not respond to a Honolulu Star-Advertiser request for comment on the governor’s statements. Green’s director of communications, Makana McClellan, said the information he cited was based on “high-level briefings” the governor receives daily.

The death toll from the Lahaina wildfire — the nation’s deadliest in over a century — has remained at 115 since Aug. 21. The Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Urban Search & Recovery Teams, including 40 cadaver-detecting dogs, have completed their survey of the entire 5-square-mile burn area. So far, MPD has released the names of 49 of the fatalities, and six others have been identified but their next of kin have not been notified or located.

MPD on Thursday released the latest name, Lahaina resident Leroy Wagner, 69. According to his family, Wagner was on the phone with his sister when he stepped outside and saw the flames — too late for him to escape. His remains were found inside his Lahaina home.

Linda Vaikeli’s name is on the FBI’s validated list of the unaccounted for as her family anxiously awaits any word on her fate. Her niece Mandy Haney, who lives in Conroe, Texas, said they were told her first-floor unit at the 112-unit Lahaina Surf apartments for low-income families was searched but not whether anything was recovered.

Vaikeli, 69, was home alone Aug. 8 when flames consumed the town. Her husband, Sione, had gone to Central Maui for a late- morning medical appointment but was unable to return home in the afternoon due to road closures and is now suffering from survivor’s guilt, according to Haney.

“Of course, we are holding out hope, but the realization is that it’s been 3-1/2 weeks, so I don’t know,” she said Thursday. “We haven’t really said it out loud yet, I guess. We feel it and we kind of know it, but saying it out loud is something different.”

Now with the search for human remains in the ruins of Lahaina complete, Vai­keli’s family is facing an even harsher reality.

“There’s a chance that she may not be found at all, which is even more horrible, to not have that closure,” Haney said. “All the families are just looking for closure.”

Vaikeli’s son flew to Maui from Texas to search for her, and family members have been active on social media with pleas for help in finding her. Haney fears national interest in the Lahaina wildlife is waning as other events overtake the news.

“I just can’t let that happen. I have to keep looking and keep posting like it just happened yesterday,” she said. “I can’t just stop looking, stop posting, especially since we aren’t getting any help at all. It’s just us.”

The family of Joseph Lara, 86, did get some closure but little comfort in learning Saturday that he had been identified through DNA samples as one of the 115 fatalities.

With warning-level winds raking Lahaina earlier Aug. 8, a family member drove by his Paunau Street house off Lahainaluna Road around 11:30 a.m. and saw Lara’s purple 2003 Ford Ranger pickup truck parked there and the doors and windows shut tight, according to his daughter, Misty Lara, 38, who lives in Wailuku.

“We thought he just hunkered down, he stayed home, because he wouldn’t drive in the rain,” she said Thursday. “So we knew he was home. There was no fire yet.”

Neighbors later said that Lara evacuated around 3 p.m. with his beloved part-Chihuahua, Haupia. As his family searched for his whereabouts, they turned up a photo showing his unmistakable purple pickup truck at a police roadblock as if he was trying to get back to his house.

“At that point that was the last knowledge we had of him. We don’t know if he went left or he went right or if the officer let him back up, which I doubt,” Misty Lara said.

His family was told that on Aug. 20 a FEMA team found Lara’s remains and those of Haupia together outside his truck, parked under the Outlets of Maui parking structure, where they think he may have sought a safe place to wait out the fire.

The son of Filipino immigrants who came to Maui to work on the sugar plantation, Lara was born and raised in Keawe Camp near Mala Wharf in Lahaina. An electrician by trade, he served as Maui Electric Co.’s Lanai station manager before retiring about 25 years ago and moving back to his hometown.

“Mala Wharf was his playground,” Misty Lara said. “To this very day that’s where he would go. He would drive around, and that’s where he would end up and park and find anyone to talk stories with.”

Lara was a boxer in his youth and played golf until a few years ago. While living on Lanai, he coached high school tennis and Little League baseball. Lara was actually Misty’s grandfather, but he adopted her as his daughter.

“He had a very strong personality. He would give people such a hard time, but at the same time he was such a jokester,” his daughter said.

And the elder Lara was never without Haupia.

“He would take the dog into church, and they would tell him he couldn’t bring the dog but he would still take the dog into church. And the same thing at the bank and at the stores,” said Misty, who lost her mother just five months ago.

“Everyone knew him. He was a Lahaina boy, and they all knew him as the man who drove a purple truck with the white dog.”

FINDING OHANA

>> A validated list of names of those unaccounted for is available at mauinuistrong.info/unaccountedfor. If you recognize a name on the list and know the person to be safe or have additional information that might help locate them, contact the FBI at 808-566-4300 or HN-COMMAND-POST@ic.fbi.gov.

>> To report a person who is still unaccounted for, email unaccounted@mpd.net with the reporting person’s first and last names, contact information and relationship to the unaccounted-for person. Also provide the person’s first and last names, age or date of birth, and last known location and physical address.

>> Those seeking information on the unaccounted for should go to the Family Assistance Center from 10 a.m. and 8 p.m. daily at the Hyatt Regency Maui Resort & Spa’s Monarchy Ballroom in Kaanapali.

>> Immediate family members who live outside Maui should contact the FBI at 808-566-4300 or email HN-COMMAND-POST@ic.fbi.gov to coordinate submission of a DNA sample. DNA samples are only for identification of wildfire victims and survivors and will not be stored or used for any other purpose.

>> Maui County officials are warning of scams related to the collection of DNA samples. Family Assistance Center staff do not call members of the public to request DNA samples, and no fees are charged for the service. Anyone receiving calls from someone claiming to be with “DNA services” or other parties should hang up immediately and report the scam to the Maui Police Department’s nonemergency number at 808-244-6400.