A Westside brushfire prompted a five-fire station response yesterday just before 2:30 p.m. From all indications, around 2 acres burned off the side of Koke‘e Road near mile marker 4. “The firefighters were pretty quick getting up the hill with
A Westside brushfire prompted a five-fire station response yesterday just before 2:30 p.m.
From all indications, around 2 acres burned off the side of Koke‘e Road near mile marker 4. “The firefighters were pretty quick getting up the hill with hoses and knocking it down,” said Inter-Island Helicopters pilot Ken D’Attilio, who watched from the air.
The county requested D’Attilio’s aid in fighting the fire and he responded in one of his company’s MD530 FF helicopters.
No one was injured and no structures were threatened in the afternoon blaze that was under control by 4 p.m. Firefighters remained on-scene near 5 p.m. ensuring hotspots did not flare up again. “I did about 30 drops,” D’Attilio said, about the water bucket suspended below his chopper. “It took awhile to knock the fire out of a tree … the wind kept flaring it up.”
The pilot also doused the perimeter of the fire with water.
Some 13 firefighters and rescue specialists from Lihu‘e, Kalaheo, Hanapepe and Waimea and three firefighters from PMRF responded to the alarm, states a Kauai County news release.
Kaua‘i police closed Koke‘e Road at the onset of the fire and diverted traffic to Waimea Canyon Road.
Officials have yet to determine a cause of the fire.
