Laurie Allen is now among the at least 98 people who died when a blaze destroyed the historic Hawaii town in August

A woman who escaped a wildfire that destroyed Hawaii community by running through a burning field has died after spending more than seven weeks in a hospital burn unit.

Laurie Allen died Friday at Straub Medical Center in Honolulu, according to a GoFundMe page set up for her and her husband, Perry Allen.

Police chief confirmed number of missing had also dropped from 41 to 31 and that 74 of the deceased had been identified

The number of confirmed fatalities from the Maui wildfires is at least 97 people, a lower death toll than what officials had previously announced, Hawaii governor Josh Green said in an interview on CNN on Friday.

State leaders said last month that at least 115 people had died in the 8 August blaze but on Friday said new testing showed they were counting multiple DNA samples from some of the victims. John Pelltier, the Maui police chief, said in a press conference that the number of missing people had also dropped from 41 to 31. And so far, 74 of the deceased have been positively identified.

Land privatization and water depletion set the stage for the Lahaina fire 150 years ago. Now, land companies may benefit even more

In the late 18th century, when the Hawaiian Kingdom became a sovereign state, Lahaina carried such an abundance of water that early explorers reportedly anointed it “Venice of the Pacific”. A glut of natural wetlands nourished breadfruit trees, extensive taro terraces and fishponds that sustained wildlife and generations of Native Hawaiian families.

But more than a century and a half of plantation agriculture, driven by American and European colonists, have depleted Lahaina’s streams and turned biodiverse food forests into tinderboxes. Today, Hawaii spends $3bn a year importing up to 90% of its food. This altered ecology, experts say, gave rise to the 8 August blaze that decimated the historic west Maui town and killed more than 111 people.

So far 99 fatalities have been identified but number of dead is expected to rise as teams search devastated neighborhoods

As officials in Hawaii continue to work painstakingly to identify the 99 people confirmed killed in wildfires that ravaged Maui, a mobile morgue unit arrived to assist even as teams intensified the search for more dead in neighborhoods reduced to ash. Meanwhile, local power utility Hawaii Electric Company has been facing criticism for not shutting off power in an area at high risk for fire.

The wildfires, some of which have not yet been fully contained, are already the deadliest in the US in more than a century. Fueled through parched invasive grasses by strong winds that whipped flames across miles in mere minutes, the blaze that swept into centuries-old Lahaina last week destroyed nearly every building in the town of 13,000.