By Dennis Oda, Star-Bulletin
Firefighters Zaldy Acosta, left, and Robin Silva douse
smoldering embers near some homes that survived the fire.
Makakilo brush fire
‘spread so fast’
A 50-acre blaze destroys one
By Rod Ohira
home and damages five others
Star-BulletinCarolyn and Kenneth Olaso need only to look at the charred remains of a neighbor's house and the scorched hillside behind their 19-year-old Makakilo home to know how lucky they were. "When I heard the glass bust and saw flames in my neighbor's house and then saw all the smoke above our house, I thought ours was gone too," Carolyn Olaso said. "Thank God it wasn't. We were very lucky."
The Olasos live at 92-526 Akaawa St., two houses away from the home most seriously damaged by a fast-spreading brush fire in Makakilo yesterday.
Seventeen of the Honolulu Fire Department's 56 companies, including a helicopter, plus three military fire companies and several private tanker trucks were involved in the 50-acre firefight, says Battalion Chief Arthur Ugalde.
By Ken Sakamoto, Star-Bulletin
HFD's Air One delivers another bucket of water. The proximity
of the danger to Makakilo homes is aparent in this aerial photo.
Damage to four homes on Akaawa Street and two on Akaula Street is estimated at $250,000, said Ugalde. The house at 92-534 Akaawa St., which was destroyed, accounts for $225,000 of the total damage estimate, he added.There were no serious injuries. Fire investigator Arthur Brown said the fire appeared to be deliberately set. The brush fire was reported at 11:54 a.m. and was one of 16 alarms firefighters responded to yesterday between 11:30 a.m. and 12:30 p.m.
While the Makakilo firefight was going on, five other companies were battling a structure fire on Kulaaupuni Street in Maili while several other units were involved in putting out brush fires at Makapuu and Haleiwa.
It took more than 80 firefighters two hours and 11 minutes to bring the Makaliko brush fire under control.
By Dennis Oda, Star-Bulletin
Philip Fujimoto, left, and Russell Lake, both from the
Kalihi Kai fire station, make sure the Makakilo
brush fire is under control
"It started out as a small brush fire but the wind chased it uphill," Battalion Chief Clayton Izu said. "So we placed our companies uphill to protect the houses. Brush has no value, but houses do."The strategy was to hose down the area below the houses to create a water curtain, Izu added.
Battalion Chief John Coe added, "Brush fires go with the wind so we have to stop it at the head, which means where it's headed."
"It spread so fast," said Carolyn Olaso, who first noticed the smoke near the freeway while gardening in her back yard. "I went in to take a shower and when I got out, the fire was about 50 yards away from our house.
"I was calling 911 when I heard the fire engines," she added. "We gathered as much stuff important to us as we could and got out. At that point, you can't really think. It's a horrible feeling."
By Dennis Oda, Star-Bulletin
Kaleo Propios, 3, helps his mom, Shauna, spray a
garden hose in case there are embers alive in the
area near their fence
The Olasos learned a valuable lesson from a 1980 brush fire that also threatened their home. According to firefighters, it might have saved the house yesterday."We don't have any trees close to the house," said Kenneth Olaso, pointing to an area beyond his back-yard rock wall, which is now tilted due to the heat of the fire. "We asked permission to cut the trees and brush.
"At one time, we even had a goat who kept the area free of brush," he added.
Calford Tam of 92-538 Akaawa St., who lives next door to the house that was gutted, says the fire damaged his sundeck and broke some windows.
"I feel very lucky," Tam said. "All my plants are burned, too, but everything is replaceable."
Tam said the house next door is owned by a military couple who recently moved to the mainland.
"They cleaned up the house and just had it painted," he added. "I heard they had a lot of rubbish in back."
The gutted house also had a large deck that extended to the back fence, Tam said.
By Ken Sakamoto, Star-Bulletin
Smoke from the 50-acre Makakilo brush fire fills
the sky as crews battle the blaze.
The house was fully engulfed in flames when firefighters arrived, Ugalde added.Jancey Shimasaki, an Akaula Street resident, assisted his neighbor when her picket fence caught on fire.
"When I first saw it, it was a small fire down by the freeway but the wind caught it and blew it up here in a couple of minutes," Shimasaki said. "It was kind of scary.
"My neighbor's picket fence was on fire and we put it out with garden hoses," he added.
Brandon Propios, whose family has lived at 92-520 Akaawa St. for 21 years, was among those trying to get to their homes during the firefight.
"My sister-in-law called me and said our house is on fire," Propios said. "We got a lot of old keawe in the back of the house and they've caught on fire before."
Propios, however, was relieved to learn his house was not seriously damaged.
"You keep wondering if something happened how you going start over again," he said. "We're very lucky the fire never touched the house."
By Ken Sakamoto, Star-Bulletin
One home was burned and several damaged, but the
damage averted was immense.
State Rep. Mark Moses (R, Kapolei-Ewa Village-Village Park) was between meetings and had stopped at his home at 92-339 Akaula St. when he looked out the window and saw the fire."It was massive billowing black smoke, which is always a bad sign, not just white smoke like a brush fire," he said, adding more homes would have been damaged if the wind shifted just slightly.
The Hawaii chapter of the American Red Cross established an evacuation shelter at Makakilo Community Park's recreation center as a precaution.
The shelter closed two hours later without anyone being evacuated.
Star-Bulletin reporter Alan Matsuoka
contributed to this report.
