By Dennis Oda, Star-Bulletin
Richard Quemado watches firefighters search the
rubble of his home for clues to what started the fire
yesterday afternoon.

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Fire leaves
Waipahu family
homeless on
Christmas

The eight adults and six
children escape without
injury on Christmas Eve,
thanks to grandmother

By Craig Gima
Star-Bulletin

Nancy Quemado is not sure what she and her six children will do to celebrate Christmas after her Waipahu home was severely damaged yesterday in a two-alarm fire.

Her brother, Rolando, spent much of Christmas Eve salvaging presents and other belongings from the house at 94-138 Hiaai Place, where eight adult family members and the six children lived.

"I don't know what I'm going to do tomorrow (Christmas)," Rolando said last night, as he and other family members picked through the damaged interior of the house.

"I'm not feeling good right now."

An upstairs Christmas tree and some presents burned in the fire, but Fire Capt. Roland Harvest said a downstairs tree and presents did not burn.

By Dennis Oda, Star-Bulletin
Nancy Quemado, right, is thankful her family is safe.
She saved two pet birds but lost five others, and may
have lost pet fish as well. Other family members
waited with her. The Quemados spent much of
Christmas Eve salvaging their belongings.

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"We get the presents, but I'm not sure how the thing look like," Rolando said.

Before the fire broke out, Nancy Quemado had planned to go to a midnight Mass and prepare food for a post-Mass celebration with her children, who range in age from 2 to 10 years.

She was at the supermarket when the fire broke out. She hadn't finished buying food for the holiday dinner when someone arrived to bring her back.

She said she may spend Christmas at Kmart, using vouchers provided by the Red Cross to buy clothes for her children.

"There's nothing we can use right now because they're all wet or damaged," she said.

The fire caused an estimated $520,000 damage. It started at about 1:40 p.m. and was brought under control at about 2:30 p.m.

Harvest said smoke was coming out of every window in the two-story home by the time the fire engines arrived.

The cause of the fire is under investigation. There were no injuries. However, several pet birds died.

Nancy Quemado's 79-year-old mother was hanging clothes in the yard and was the first to notice the fire, which started in a storage room in the back of the house.

Nancy Quemado said her mother alerted the family and helped make sure her six children escaped the fire unharmed.

"At least we're all together and we're all safe," she said.