‘Total destruction in 10 minutes’

HANAPEPE — The Harley motorcycle is charred. The big screen TV is melted. The couches are destroyed, but Roberta Vengley was thankful looking at her blackened house on Puolo Road on Wednesday.

“I’m not just OK, I’m good,” Vengley said as she surveyed the Hanapepe home she and her husband Danny have been renting behind Paco’s Tacos for five weeks. “The really important stuff made it. We saved half of the animals. My husband and I are alive.”

Kauai Fire Department responded about 10:30 a.m. and found the carport and a portion of the house on fire. Firefighters from the Hanapepe fire station were first on scene, and were soon assisted by Waimea, Kalaheo and Lihue firefighters. The blaze was extinguished by 11 a.m and caused about $300,000 in damage to structure and contents.

Vengley had returned home about 10:15 a.m. from her night job as a medical transcriptionist and had just stepped out of the shower. Her husband was away at work.

“I work nights and sleep days. I should have been asleep about an hour before that,” she said. “I thought I smelled something so I went over and opened the door (into the living room).”

Smoke coming from near the kitchen was filling the house. Immediately, Vengley grabbed her two small dogs and ran out of the house. Thick smoke and flames prevented her from going back in for the family’s two maine coon cats, which they rescued from a shelter in California before moving to Kauai in 2006.

“They’re part of the family,” Vengley said. “We don’t have children, we have animals, and I’m very sad about the cats.”

As neighbors later helped Roberta and Danny pull guitars, clothing and any other potentially salvageable items out of the house, the couple worked to silence the car alarm on their red Saturn Astra XR.

The car was being turned into a makeshift temporary kennel for the dogs and the minute the doors were opened, the alarm sounded.

It took a few minutes to find a solution and silence the alarm because the car’s keys were melted beyond recognition.

“It was total destruction in 10 minutes,” Vengley said. “It happened so fast. The fire department got here about five minutes after I smelled the smoke.”

Walking through the soaked and smoky remnants of her house, Vengley pointed out what used to be “absolutely beautiful tile, but you can’t tell anymore,” and walls that used to be yellow but are now black.

In the midst of the destruction, she pulled out a perfect alabaster bowl, still shining white in the light coming through the window, explaining it is one of her husband’s family heirlooms.

“A lot of the special things, the important things, they made it because we just moved in and haven’t gotten through unpacking yet,” Vengley said. “It looks like everything burnt, but a few things made it.”

Neighbors called the fire department when they saw smoke Wednesday morning, and a different set of neighbors helped with the cleanup throughout the afternoon.

“When your house burns down, you realize who your friends are and you see the community that’s coming out to help you,” Vengley said.

American Red Cross volunteers are working to secure food, shelter and clothing items for the couple, who said they were still looking for lodging for Wednesday night.

The cause has yet to be determined by Kauai Fire Department, but Vengley said her theories are it sprung from wiring near the hot water heater.

Though they’ve got a lot of cleaning ahead of them, Vengley was doing her best to maintain a sense of humor.

“We wanted to downsize,” she joked. “This is the start of spring cleaning.”

As she stood on the perfectly intact front steps of her destroyed home, Vengley said she would encourage everyone to have a plan in the case of a fire — and to have renter’s insurance.

“I’d have a bag by every single one of the doors and your bed, just in case,” Vengley said. “It happened so fast.”

Donate at redcross.org/hawaii or call: 739-8109