GEORGE F. LEE / GLEE@STARBULLETIN.COM Aukai Avenue residents helped police officers and firefighters control the flames yesterday at a cottage on Kahala Avenue. The fire, which was brought under control eight minutes after firefighters arrived, is believed to have started inside the home.

Kahala cottage
fire leaves family
homeless

Faulty electrical wiring is
thought to be the cause of a
blaze that gutted the home

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By Mary Vorsino
mvorsino@starbulletin.com

Fire gutted the two-bedroom Kahala cottage of a couple with a 3-week-old daughter yesterday afternoon, leaving the family homeless.

Daniel and Michelle Dolan and their infant were not at their 4562 Kahala Ave. home when 20 firefighters responded to the blaze at about 12:18 p.m., said Honolulu Fire Department spokesman Capt. Richard Soo.

The Dolans have been renting the home, an annex to a main house, for about a year, said neighbor Prudy Potter.

Potter said the couple, both in their 30s, do not have renter's insurance and are being assisted by the American Red Cross. The Dolans were not available for comment.

Damage to the structure and contents of the home was estimated at $210,000.

Potter and her husband, who live behind the destroyed home, turned garden hoses on their own cottage to stop flames from jumping the 8-foot gap between the two homes.

Fire singed the tips of their 7-foot-tall hedges, which are about six feet from the burned-out cottage.

"You could hear the glass" windows in the fire-engulfed home popping because of the intense heat, Potter said. "The flames were just immense."

Mark O'Leary, a nearby resident, was on his way home when he saw smoke and flames pouring from the cottage. He was one of about five people who helped police officers and firefighters control the flames. He said he was 10 feet from the home as flames were "turning up under the eave" and jumping onto the main home's roof.

The fire, which was controlled eight minutes after firefighters arrived, is believed to have started inside the home. The cause of the fire is still being investigated, but faulty electrical wiring is believed to be at fault, Soo said.

Theresa Potter, Prudy Potter's daughter-in-law who lives with her husband in the Potters' cottage, is a friend of Michelle Dolan's and informed her of the blaze by cell phone.

"She's devastated. She's in shock," she said, adding that Dolan was returning home from taking her baby to the doctor's when she heard about the fire.