Rain helps in containing
Big Isle wildfire

The 880-acre blaze was sparked
by a Kilauea lava flow

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By Treena Shapiro
tshapiro@starbulletin.com

Rain helped firefighters at Hawaii Volcanoes National Park contain an 880-acre wildfire on the Pulama Pali overnight Sunday, the park reported.

An aerial reconnaissance was planned for first thing this morning to assess the fire, which was ignited Saturday morning by a lava flow from Kilauea's ongoing east rift eruption.

Fire Management Officer Jack Minassian said yesterday, "Soaking rains and a relative humidity of 95 percent helped ease the fire's threat of spread today."

Current weather and fire activity will determine the firefighters' course of action today.

Thirty firefighters worked yesterday to contain the blaze by felling dead trees with chain saws, cutting smoldering wood to prevent flare-ups and shoveling up hot embers smoldering beneath the surface and mixing them with cool, wet dirt outside the burn area, the park reported.

The fire management team is using two helicopters to ferry firefighters to remote areas and to drop 100 gallons of water on hot spots.

"It's slow going. Firefighters walk the fire line mindful that piles of dead vegetation hide cavernous earth cracks. There are huge dead ohia tree snags that have toppled over on the whim of a strong wind. It's smoky, it's hot, and noxious fumes from Puu Oo are adrift," said Park Ranger Mardie Lane in a release issued yesterday.

Lane said that operations planners took advantage of new Geographical Information System and Global Positioning System technology to create maps defining the fire's size and perimeter, and to identify fuel types and critical natural and archeological resources.