INDIANAPOLIS — Indiana Task Force 1 returned home Monday, after their nearly two-week deployment to Hawaii.
The team of 70 Hoosier first responders worked a marathon mission in Maui in the aftermath of deadly wildfires. Back at their headquarters Monday, they spent the afternoon unloading gear, debriefing and reflecting on a deployment unlike any other.
"We travel to a lot of disasters, and there's a lot of things that we've seen," IN-TF1 Safety Officer Mike Pruitt said. "We've never experienced this type of environment before, where literally the whole town has been wiped out by fire. Just blocks and blocks and blocks. I mean, if you can think around the metro area here, of all the towns of 13,000 to 15,000, and just imagine that those towns are gone."
"It burned over 2,000 degrees, which in that type of a fire, pretty much disintegrates everything," said Jay Settergren, IN-TF1 task force leader for this mission. "So it's pretty difficult to work through all that."
"You could not even find a personal effect in any of those structures. It burned so hard and so fast," Pruitt said.
The team spent 10 days searching eight square miles of wildfire aftermath. They said it was a meticulous, tedious, challenging recovery, including four days "de-layering" a large apartment building.
"That was going through four floors, using our search dogs to be able to go through and search for any remains in the building," Settergren said.
"I literally saw them taking anything they could find to sift through the ashes, looking for any remains," Pruitt said.
It was physically and emotionally draining.
But the gravity of this mission kept them going: finding lost loved ones and bringing closure.
"The team members were down on their hands and knees going through every bit, trying to find something to bring back to give to the families," Pruitt said.
"Our guys did an outstanding job, like they always do. They're just very professional, very hard-working, and they just...I couldn't be more proud," Settergren said, tearing up.
The number of missing in Maui went from thousands when the team arrived to a few hundred by the time they left.
"It's still not good," Pruitt said, "but it's better."
And it's thanks, in part, to the work of Hoosier heroes.
The group also shared a message to the people of Maui.
"We want to extend a huge thank you for your kindness and support. Your resilience has been nothing short of inspiring, and we hope that our presence there has made a positive impact in the search for missing loved ones," IN-TF1 said in a post on social media Sunday.
Now, with a hurricane headed to Florida, more team members could potentially get activated to help there.
One IN-TF1 first responder is already on the way, activated Monday morning. So is a task force team from Ohio and Tennessee.
Any larger deployment by IN-TF1 would have to wait until more of their equipment needed for search and rescue work returns from Maui.