DEAN SENSUI / DSENSUI@STARBULLETIN.COM A Honolulu Fire Department helicopter dropped water yesterday onto the leading edge of a brush fire that had threatened houses along a ridge in Pacific Palisades.

Fire threatens homes
in Pacific Palisades

Neighbors wielding hoses
help turn back the blaze,
which ran up the valley's wall

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By Sally Apgar
sapgar@starbulletin.com

When flames shot up from the steep valley below Eric Beal's house and surrounded his back yard yesterday, his Pacific Palisades neighbors came running with their garden hoses.

Five fire companies responded, and 20 firefighters dragged hoses through Beal's and his neighbors' back yards at the end of Ahakapu Street so they could fight back the flames climbing out of the valley.

A Honolulu Fire Department helicopter dropped 150-gallon bucket-loads of water onto the fire, which was called in about 11:15 a.m.

Initially, firefighters were concerned the flames would reach the homes on several cliff-side streets that edge the valley. Within 45 minutes, the fire was beaten back down the cliff. The flames came within 75 feet of some homes, according to the Fire Department.

By 12:15 the fire was under control.

Firefighters remained at the scene yesterday afternoon, extinguishing flare-ups and hot spots.

There were no injuries and no homes were damaged. The cause of the blaze, which Beal believes originated near the bottom of the gulch along Waimano Stream, has not been determined.

"When we got here the fire was out of control," said Battalion Chief Ronald Rico. "The fire was burning up and down the hillside, but it didn't impact the homes."

Rico urged residents of Pacific Palisades and other neighborhoods that border similar valleys to clean brush off land adjacent to their homes to prevent fires from getting too close to their property.

Beal said he first noticed smoke and a small orange glow in the valley Sunday and called the Fire Department. By the time they arrived, the fire was out. Then yesterday, when Beal returned to his home, he looked out at his circular back yard so see it walled with fire.

"The first few minutes were pretty dramatic,'' said Beal, who was the second person to call the Fire Department. The first person called from Amokemoke Street, which is lower down the hillside from Beal and had been covered in smoke.

Beal said it rained hard in the valley Friday, but before that it had been dry.

Neighbors, home for the Presidents Day holiday, stood in Beal's back yard watching the firefighters as they leaned against the hurricane fence that defines the end of his lawn and the beginning of the cliff side.

A few houses away from Beal, Alison Tyrrell, a 31-year-old technology consultant, was working at her computer when three firetrucks pulled up in front of her house, her first alert of fire.

"The fire got really close, and it was really a bit scary. I was out there in the yard with a hose, and so was half the neighborhood," said Tyrrell. "I guess a fire is one way to bring the neighborhood together."