The devastated mother of a 14-year-old son said that she found him dead, hugging his pet dog after they both perished in Lahaina wildfires.
When Luz Vargas was finally allowed to return to her burned-out home, she made the gruesome discovery of Keyiro Fuentes and his dog's lifeless bodies.
“He was not as I expected, in ashes,” she said of the teen’s remains preserved by the extreme heat.
“God maintained him like this. So, we knew it was him.”
Vargas was at work when flames reached her Lahaina home on the last day before school. Keyiro was home alone at the time.
“They were saying, ‘Don’t go. Don’t go.’ I said, ‘But it’s my son!”
The mother reached a police barrier surrounding the burning zone and begged officers to let her in.
“I threw myself on the floor, lifted my hands up, and begged God”; Vargas was reportedly told that the boy may have fled.
“I wish I could’ve made more memories with him,” Keyiro’s brother said.
“He was too young. If he still had time. I know he would’ve been a very, very, very good man.”
