Fire threatens
endangered plantsA burning van sparks a blaze
that destroys brush at Kaena Point
A brush fire swept through the Waianae mountains on the Mokuleia side of Kaena Point yesterday, burning about 155 acres and threatening five types of endangered native Hawaiian plants.
The blaze started about 10:30 p.m. Tuesday after winds carried flames from a burning 22-passenger van mauka toward Kaena Point. The van was on Farrington Highway about a mile from Camp Erdman, fire Capt. Emmit Kane said.
Around 65 city and federal firefighters, along with state forestry officials, battled the blaze all night Tuesday and all day yesterday.
Firefighters and the Fire Department helicopter continued to fight the blaze yesterday, Kane said.
No injuries were caused by the blaze, but about two-thirds of the area burned by the fire was in Kaena Point State Park.
The fire threatened five endangered plants -- ohai, akoko, awiwi, kooloaulu and nehe -- in a critical plant habitat along the northern Manini Pali lands in the park, said Patrick Costales, Oahu branch manager of the state's Forestry and Wildlife Division.
"Most of these plants are usually found in real steep places. They thrive there because there is hardly any human or cattle impact," Costales said, adding that this is the first time that fire has crested the ridge into the Kuaokala area.
"Fire would be the principal threat to these plants," he said.
Survey teams, which canvassed the area yesterday, have yet to determine whether the fire damaged these plants, he said.
However, the fire destroyed sections of the irrigation system in the critical plant habitat, making it difficult for officials to water the plants that did survive the fire.
"We can't irrigate the plants because many of the irrigation pipes have been burned and destroyed," Costales said.
One of their main concerns now, he added, is figuring out "how to mitigate the damage to plants that have survived."
One-third of the brush fire also burned a section of the Kuaokala game management area, where birds like quails, partridges, doves and pheasants probably have migrated already, Costales said.
"But they'll come back," he said, adding that these birds can adapt to adjacent environments and will return when the plants return.
Another fire in the same area, but unrelated to the first fire, flared at about 6:30 p.m. yesterday near Camp Erdman.
The fire had burned more than 300 acres at the time and was continuing mauka into areas that had burned earlier in the day, Kane said.
Although the fire was not yet contained, Kane said he hoped the fire would extinguish itself once it hit areas that were already burned.
He also said there were no injuries, but firefighters escorted a man and a dog, who were living in a makeshift lean-to in the mountain, out of harm's way.
