LIHU‘E — The effects of a fire at the Lihu‘e Transfer Station escalated yesterday, resulting in a helicopter crash, toxic smoke clouds billowing over Lihu‘e, the closing of Kapule Highway, voluntary evacuation of a subdivision and offices and stressed drivers
LIHU‘E — The effects of a fire at the Lihu‘e Transfer Station escalated yesterday, resulting in a helicopter crash, toxic smoke clouds billowing over Lihu‘e, the closing of Kapule Highway, voluntary evacuation of a subdivision and offices and stressed drivers delayed in snarled traffic.
Two people were treated and released for smoke-related injuries. One person was hospitalized after an afternoon car accident at the junction of Rice Street and Kapule Highway shortly after Kapule Highway reopened.
Air 1 helicopter pilot Gary Hall walked away from a crash on the edge of a cane field at Hanama‘ulu Bay, said Cyndi Mei Ozaki, county public information officer. Hall was assisting with firefighting efforts, earlier dropping water on to the fire when, at 3:49 p.m., the helicopter’s blade struck a tree. An investigation is underway into the crash, which seriously damaged the aircraft.
The fire broke out around 11:30 a.m., mauka of the Lihu‘e Transfer Station, apparently when white goods (refrigerators, washing machines, stoves, etc.) and scrap metal were being loaded at the facility and spontaneously combusted, said Troy Tanigawa, county solid waste coordinator, who was at the scene.
The fire eventually spread to the cane field located between Kapule Highway and the transfer station, causing a brush fire that engulfed about 60 acres before being brought under control at 4:19 p.m., Ozaki said. Firefighters were still working on “hot spots” at sunset, she said.
Even though plumes of putrid smoke billowed toward downtown Lihu‘e before noon, the county’s decision to close Kapule Highway and to request “shelter in place,” or asking people to stay indoors, did not come until just before 2:30 p.m.
Ozaki could not say why the closures took place three hours after the fire began.
The mayor activated the Emergency Operations Center at 1:50 p.m., coordinating county and state agencies, as well as organizations such as the Red Cross, Ozaki said.
Once the determination was made that the fire was toxic, and wind speed and direction were assessed, people in affected areas were asked to stay indoors in affected areas if they had air conditioning, she added.
Police, at around 2:30 p.m., started voluntary evacuations of Molokoa subdivision, just east of Rice Street, because of the toxic smoke, said Ozaki. Residents with air conditioning in the Molokoa subdivision, Lihu‘e Town Estates, and Kalapaki Villas, were asked to stay indoors with their windows rolled up.
The all clear from the toxic fire was given at 3:30 p.m., but the brush fire caused further traffic delays along Kapule Highway.
Kaua‘i Fire Department Engines 3 and 5, Brush truck 2, and Rescue 3 responded to the fire, Ozaki said.
A fire break dug by firefighters worked to contain the fire, that spread from the transfer station to adjacent former sugar lands now mostly overgrown with bushes, according to a KFD spokesman.
Lani Yukimura, spokesperson at Wilcox Memorial Hospital, said two people were treated and released from the emergency room after going there for treatment for injuries or illnesses related to the fire and smoke.
Marcela Hornos, who lives on Puaole Street in Molokoa has two daughters with asthma, simply closed up her windows and instructed her children to stay indoors when word came about the voluntary evacuations.
Some of her neighbors did get in their cars and leave, she said.
But that was after the worst of the fumes had already passed, she said. “The fumes weren’t all that bad” when she got word of the voluntary evacuations, “but it was bad” earlier, around 11 a.m., shortly after the fire started. “The smell was bad” then, she said.
She was not working yesterday, so she brought her husband, Keith Hornos, to work at Hawaiian Airlines at Lihu‘e Airport. She was waiting for a call from him to go and pick him up, but he never called.
“We really didn’t (feel we needed to) leave,” and later on the entrance to the subdivision was blocked off. “It was a good thing we didn’t leave.”
Another Molokoa resident, who works on Rice Street but did not want to be identified, said for most air-conditioned businesses in the vicinity of the fire, yesterday was business as usual. “The smell was bad when we were leaving for lunch,” and she and her co-workers could see some soot floating by from the fire in the afternoon, she said.
When the voluntary evacuations in Molokoa were announced, the Lihu‘e Public Library closed, with the last patrons leaving by 4 p.m.
Kapa‘a-bound traffic along Kuhio Highway in Lihu‘e, all the way to Hanama‘ulu and back past Kukui Grove Center on Kaumuali‘i Highway, was bumper to bumper for several hours in the wake of the fire, when traffic was rerouted.
Kapule Highway was in effect, closed. Those traveling from Kapa‘a were directed to stay on Kuhio Highway through Hanama‘ulu, while those heading towards Lihu‘e Airport on Ahukini Road were turned away. The intersection at Kapule Highway and Rice Street was also closed to traffic, Ozaki said.
Not long after it was reopened, one person, a passenger in a gold sedan, was injured when two cars collided head-on at the Kapule Highway and Rice Street intersection. The driver of the gold vehicle, which was attempting to make a left onto Rice Street from Kapule, as well as the driver of the blue sedan, were walking around after the accident. A white poodle from the gold sedan was also uninjured in the accident.
Yolanda Kelly, Patty Anthony, and Sarah Pai of Air Kauai, were some of the closest members of the public to the fire, as Air Kauai offices, are just a couple of hundred yards from the transfer station.
“It wasn’t as bad as they made it seem” on the radio, said Kelly. They just stayed inside, they said.
What worried Pai was the fire spreading toward the fuel pumps.
“The scariest was the fuel tanks. I just saw a huge fire behind” them, she said.
All the helicopter companies flew until 2:30 p.m., until Ahukini Road was closed. Air Kauai lost two flights, and Island Air lost three pre-booked flights because no one could get to the airport.
Pai said that, at one point, because of the smoke and the fire’s proximity to the fuel tanks, the helicopters were landing at the commuter terminal. Bradley Pacific was nice enough to lend the companies gas, said Kelly.
Folks down in the Nawiliwili Harbor area said they didn’t even know there was a fire.
Ellie Garcia, an employee at the South Pacific Gallery in the Anchor Cove Shopping Area, said she was told by a relative about the fire.
When she was leaving work, at around 5 p.m., she was more worried about the trip to Hanama‘ulu than the toxic fumes.
“I’m just going to try to get home,” Garcia said, adding that if she got stuck, she’d probably go shopping.
Some of the guys hanging out on the benches at Nawiliwili Harbor didn’t know there even was a fire.
One man, who requested his name not be used, said he knew something was going on when he was eating lunch with his wife in the Pua Loke subdivision.
He said he checked outside just before noon to see if his neighbors were burning, he said, but saw nothing. His wife didn’t smell it, he added, but “I got a good nose.”
“I just smelled something that (wasn’t) right,” he added.
Tom Finnegan, staff writer, can be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 226)
