WAIKOLOA — Just south of Waikoloa Village, the resort area on Hawai‘i Island, and mauka of Highway 190 near the Pu‘u Lani Subdivision, a 17,000-acre wildfire has left a charred landscape. That’s 26.5 square miles of burned land that dozens of firefighters, supported by heavy equipment and air assets, have worked a week to extinguish.
WAIKOLOA — Just south of Waikoloa Village, the resort area on Hawai‘i Island, and mauka of Highway 190 near the Pu‘u Lani Subdivision, a 17,000-acre wildfire has left a charred landscape. That’s 26.5 square miles of burned land that dozens of firefighters, supported by heavy equipment and air assets, have worked a week to extinguish.
Wednesday, they achieved 90 percent containment of the fire, according to a state Department of Land and Natural Resources press release.
“It’s possible, we could see another re-kindle of this fire, as that’s what started it in the first place,” said Lt. Col. Kevin Cronin, commander of the Pohakuloa Training Area.
The PTA “federal fire department first put out a fire here three weeks ago. We believe hot spots lay dormant under the ground, and then high winds whipped it up into the major fire we’ve all been fighting for the past week,” he said.
Several assets were utilized to control the blaze.
