LIHU‘E — A brush fire ignited in a valley behind the Lihue Gardens Elderly housing development Tuesday afternoon, and threatened the project and homes by Jerves Street before it was brought under control by county firefighters. The two-acre fire started
LIHU‘E — A brush fire ignited in a valley behind the Lihue Gardens Elderly housing development Tuesday afternoon, and threatened the project and homes by Jerves Street before it was brought under control by county firefighters.
The two-acre fire started after someone conducted a “controlled burn” in the same valley on Monday, according to Kaua‘i Fire Department Battalion Chief Bob Kaden.
“Somebody was burning the previous day in the same area, and the controlled burn reignited,” Kaden told The Garden Island.
Tradewinds were credited by residents with helping to save their homes from damage during the fire.
The fire was first reported at 1 p.m., and charred the brush before seven firefighters from the Lihu‘e fire station got the fire under control by 1:30 p.m., Kaden said. The fire was extinguished by around 3 p.m.
Residents said a fire hydrant was nowhere handy, but noted firefighters expertly and quickly put out the fire with water pumped from two fire trucks that contained hundreds of gallons of water.
The firefighters apparently made their way to the valley via old cane-haul roads, and firefighters strategically positioned the trucks around fire spots in the valley to put the fires out.
To help snuff out embers in the valley behind their home on Jerves Street, Brian Inouye and family members pulled out water hoses and continuously sprayed the black, smoldering brush in the valley.
Tradewinds helped keep the fire from marching makai up an embankment and damaging or engulfing units at the Lihue Gardens elderly rental-apartment project, home to many senior citizens, and a few homes on the bluff overlooking the valley.
“I saw the fire burning in the valley,” said Carie Inouye, Brian Inouye’s daughter. “But it didn’t seem like it posed a threat (due to the tradewinds, which blew burning cinders away from the Inouye home).”
The cause of the fire was not determined, although dry weather conditions could have contributed to the blaze.
The fire came within 20 feet of some residential homes, and within about 50 feet from the elderly apartments.
Residents with hoses watered down the embankment and gardens located on the edge of the bluff to try to prevent the fire from going over the side and causing buildings to catch fire.
“I was worried. I made everybody get their water hoses out,” said Jacqueline Kaulula‘au, a resident at the elderly apartments. “I was worried the wind would switch. If the wind had switched, everything would have been covered by the fire.”
Chris Navarro, another resident at the apartments, was credited with urging others to pull out water hoses and spray down the garden and hillside.
Residents at the apartments said there was no call for evacuation of buildings as the fire consumed the brush.
Kaulula‘au and Eileen Costa Brum said the fire startled them, and created fear for a moment.
“I was watching TV, and I heard this sound, ‘pat, pat, pat.’ I heard this crackling sound,” Costa Brum said. “But I didn’t think it would come our way because of the tradewinds. Still, the fire was still hazardous, because the wind could have switched. I was shooting down the house (with water from a hose).”
Kaulula‘au said she heard a “crackling sound” emanate from the valley around 1 p.m., and when it appeared the fire would spread, she called 911 minutes later.
Firefighters were already on the scene by 1:15 p.m., residents said.
Allen Bobiles, who owns a home on Jerves Street, located a few hundred feet from the source of the fire, said, “we have lived here for about 10 years, and this is the first time we have seen something like this.
“There was a big, big cloud of black smoke (on the horizon),” Bobiles said. “At first, we (family and friends) were afraid that it might come this way (toward his home). But we knew it was going south (mauka) because of the tradewinds.”
Carie Inouye said she was in the house when she heard “something outside,” and told her mother, Diane, about the fire. “I saw people coming. I heard the fire (engines coming),” she said. “I think a neighbor called for help.”
