‘I knew the house was burning down’

KOLOA — At least once a day, Jackie St. Croix will pause in her yard to say a very simple prayer. “Ke Akua. Thank you for this day. I am listening.”

St. Croix has a spiritual perspective about losing her home to a fire on May 16, except for one nagging sense that if she’d stuck to her routine, it could have been prevented. The independent living former tax preparer is strong but said losing her home and several pets has taken its toll.

“I am having a tough time,” St. Croix said. “God bless our Humane Society and the American Red Cross because those people have helped me.”

St. Croix said the kitchen clock read 9:35 p.m. when she recalled the last thing she did before going to bed was to turn off a new gas stove. It upsets her to think that if she’d done the dishes before bed as usual, she might have caught the small blaze if it was ignited by the stove.

St. Croix awoke to popping sounds she thought were gunshots around 2:30 a.m. There was a swoosh of heat and she knew it was a fire.

“There was a fireball coming at me and I knew the house was burning down,” St. Croix said.

She broke her thumb trying to get to part of the home that was not yet engulfed in flames. She called for the two pregnant dogs that she took in and her Pomeranians that protected them. Only one came out.

“I ran to the door entering the garage area to call the puppies that wouldn’t leave their mother,” she said. “Jimmy (her dog) protected them as long as he could, and he was terribly burned when he came out.”

The corner home was nestled behind a wall of brush and fence at 4191 Koloa Road, just a mile east of Lawai. It is bordered by a cul-de-sac at Mana Hema Place and Highway 530.

St. Croix’s neighbor, John Hoff, built the home around 1985. At the time, he was subdividing the property into lots. The retired contractor, part-time teacher and landscaper said the wall of fire lit up the night sky and the charred smell still lingers in the air.

“It is all overgrown, but you can see the black frame coming through the trees,” Hoff said.

The early morning blaze completely burned the one-story structure and its contents. The structure was insured but not its contents. The loss is estimated at $400,000.

The home and its contents were a relic to a time since passed. St. Croix said a smaller structure with more yard space is appropriate for her current lifestyle.

“God has different things for me to do, and so now this big monstrous house with the burden of never being able to say no to people is gone,” she said. “As bad as this looks, basically, I would be happy with a little house on stilts right here and just the size of the garage.”

St. Croix said it is too early for such planning but she has thought for some time that a smaller, one-room home with a kitchen and bathroom would be more suitable. She would use the rest of the property to raise her chickens, goats, and care for an herb garden.

For now, St. Croix stays in a small trailer in her backyard. It was once used for her tax business and along with the chicken coup is the only structure still standing on the property.

Two roosters in a large coop next to her trailer survived the blaze. A portion of a wall on the home didn’t burn completely and helped shield the cage and her trailer from the flames.

St. Croix designed the cage 30 years ago. It was used for breading and smaller, removable cages allowed the chickens to feed around the yard.

She crossbreeded birds for 13 years and enjoyed her blue, Grade A araucana eggs. She doesn’t have hens now, but people still bring their hens to mate with the roosters.

A few of her 11 guppy tanks survived with the fish still living. Fourty-gallon containers are scattered around the yard for St. Croix to scoop fertilizer from for her soil.

The original guppies came from the Waikomo stream. She said that George Sueoka, the late former owner of the Poipu Inn, caught them for her in 1968.

“A few survived, she said. “I am switching the water and some are still full of babies.”

The lush gardens on her property were not maintained and overgrown with brush. Still an herbalist, St. Croix cared for several medicinal plants and some have already sprouted since the fire.

“There is so much beauty still happening,” she said.

A new lawn mower burned with only 4.5 hours of use. The old lawn mower sat undamaged outside the garage where she moved it until she eventually gave it away.

She still finds a salvageable item on occasion and said her antique iron furniture and tools stood up very well.

“America needs to make things again as well as they did in the turn of the century,” she said.

Kaua‘i Fire Department was on the scene about 2:30 a.m. but the three-bedroom home was already fully engulfed in flames. Sixteen firefighters from three fire stations were called before the blaze was extinguished by 5 a.m.

Kauai Fire Department inspectors said Tuesday the cause of the fire is under investigation. St. Croix is not certain, but suspects a new portable butane stove she began using three week’s prior to the blaze.

“This is speculation, and I purchased it so recently, but I used them for so long without a problem,” she said. “There are several other things that could have occurred and I am anxious more than anyone to learn what caused the fire.”

St. Croix used an older model butane stove for many years until it began taking longer and longer to light. The newer model uses a replaceable canister and a lever causes the seal to break when switching it on or off, releasing a small pocket of gas that could ignite from a metal on metal spark, she said.

St. Croix spoke to the firemen about the stoves and said many people are using them to save on electricity. The homeless also use them for cooking and heat in the tent, she said.

“What’s really important is for people to be careful with all the cook stoves that they are using in their homes, and to be around for at least a good half hour after lighting it or turning it off,” St. Croix said. “Especially for people and families living in tents, because if a fire started by the doorway they could all be dead.”

St. Croix said her partner of 16 years who passed in January 2005, was a former firefighter who taught her good fire prevention. She kept her fire extinguishers updated, she said.

The fire was fueled by clothing that was packed in her main bedroom. She said it was left with her by people who lost their homes to Hurricane Iniki.

A workshop was lost in the blaze. She also had several metal cabinets full of client tax files from her business that she ran from 1968 to 2005. She retired after suffering a concussion on a cruise ship that resulted in damaged eyesight.

St. Croix doesn’t drive and catches rides to town or stays within walking distance to carry her own water. She said friends and strangers have been kind with food, water, ice and fresh fruit.

“There have been a lot of wonderful people showing up and a lot of strangers,” she said.