Calls about use of fire
are hot topic on Kauai
LIHUE >> The Kauai Fire Department started a firestorm of questions yesterday by asking the County Council to adopt the state fire code.
Council members questioned restrictions that require a person who starts a cooking or water-heating fire to notify the Fire Department dispatch office and nearest fire station before lighting the fire.
The Council decided the proposed new code "needs further study."
"Are we talking about hibachis, too?" Council Chairman Kaipo Asing asked Fire Prevention Chief Russell Yee.
Yee said it applies to any open fire used for cooking.
"Do I need to call every time I want to take a bath?" asked Councilman Daryl Kaneshiro. "We still have these practices going on by many old people on this island."
"Regardless if these practices have been going on for years and years and years, accidents happen," Yee said.
Yee could recall only a wood water-heater fire that damaged a cabin in Kokee.
Activist Andy Parks noted thousands of Kauai residents go to beach parks with their hibachis every weekend.
"About 2 p.m. on every Sunday afternoon, the Fire Department is going to be inundated with phone calls if this requirement is enforced," he said.
Honolulu has the same cooking fire requirement on the books but limits it to large fires.
People on Oahu who request permits for imu fires, barbecue chicken fires or bonfires are provided information on safe burning practices.
But the real value of the law, as the Honolulu Fire Department sees it, is to prevent firetrucks from responding to calls reporting a huge column of smoke that turns out to be a church group barbecuing chicken.
"We just ask people to let us know when they are going to have a large cooking fire so we don't respond to false alarms," said Honolulu Fire Prevention Chief Lloyd Rogers.
