During his nearly quarter-century with the Henderson Fire Department, Mike Porter saw firsthand the trail of devastation left behind by fire.
But for him, the fires on Maui, where the town of Lahaina was decimated, were different. “Once we were over there it took about 24 hours for everything to really sink in,” he said. “The level of devastation, the fierceness of the fire and how quickly it went through that area was unbelievable. By the time people were able to conceptualize what was going on, it was too late.”
Porter, a Boulder City resident for the past 23 years and a reserve battalion chief for the Boulder City Fire Department, was sent to Maui as part of a mission-ready package, which included two handlers, three support staff and two human remains detection dogs, better known as a cadaver dog. Their job is to find the remains of those whose lives were lost.