Huge fire strikes UH Lab School

A blaze visible for miles destroys a building and forces evacuations in surrounding areas

A dramatic fire destroyed a University Laboratory School building in Manoa yesterday afternoon, darkening the sky with thick plumes of smoke visible from Waikiki and downtown.

The 67-year-old wooden building known as the Elementary School housed classrooms and offices for the public charter school's physical education, drama and music programs, officials said.

"We could see flames bursting out from the Woodlawn area," said Manoa Valley resident Dale Moana Gilmartin. "It looked as high as the roof of the marine sciences building."

No one was seriously injured in the blaze, which was reported at 3:48 p.m., and 50 firefighters from 12 engine and ladder trucks had it under control at 6:10 p.m. Firefighters remained at the site late into the night.

Three police officers were taken to the Queen's Medical Center for treatment of smoke inhalation and heat exhaustion and one firefighter was treated on the site for the same, city Emergency Services Department spokesman Bryan Cheplic said.

The police had been working to evacuate families from about 15 houses on Hoonanea Street, just downwind of the fire.

Police had to urge 78-year-old Ed Miyasato to come down off his Hoonanea Street rooftop, where he was spraying water down the side of his home nearest the fire.

"I felt helpless because there was no way of stopping the fire from spreading to my home," Miyasato said as he waited on the street last night with his family to be allowed back into the home. "All I could do was watch and wait."

Ironically, students used to call a small, wood-floored auditorium and stage in the building "the matchbox" for being hot and stuffy and for its apparent flammability, said Walt Quitan, a physical education teacher and the school's basketball coach.

Losses include some computers, musical instruments, athletic equipment and uniforms, plus many years' worth of school memorabilia such as athletic trophies and press clippings from when the Lab School was an occasional state power in basketball, volleyball and other sports from the 1970s through 1990s, Quitan said.

"There was a lot of history in there, especially athletic history," said Danny Alvarez, a basketball coach during the 1990s and now head of the school's alumni association. "That stuff can't be replaced."

Quitan said parts of the facility also recently had been refurbished.

UH officials declined to estimate the total value of the building and its contents yesterday. The university still owns the building.

UH ran the school from 1931 to 1999, and it has been a public charter school since.

Quitan said he was just outside the building when Athletic Director Jim Bukes alerted him to the smell of smoke.

"I still don't know how it could have started," Quitan said.

The cause of the fire is under investigation, but the speed with which it consumed the building was obvious.

The multiroom building had one contiguous ceiling and attic across the top of the structure, a type of construction that makes it easy for fires to spread fast, said Richard Soo, fire safety manager for the state Department of Education.

Because no one was inside and the fire spread so quickly, firefighters fought the fire "defensively," meaning they kept it from spreading to adjacent buildings, Fire Department spokesman Kenison Tejada said.

The fire drew dozens of neighborhood onlookers, who perched on rooftops and sat on lanais, porches and walls along Metcalf Street to watch firefighters battle the blaze. Among them were teachers and students from the school, past and present.

Ryan Yoshida, 12, had attended the first day of summer school class yesterday morning in the building that later burned. He was sad to see the building go and hoped classes would be held today.

Summer classes for about 100 students will continue today in the other campus buildings, said UH spokesman Jim Manke.

"This is a place that really shaped me," Williamson Chang, a Lab School graduate from the class of 1969 and UH law professor, said as he watched the blaze. "That was the fifth grade right there," he said.

Though the building was "old and beat up ... it was a great building," said Bill Teter, who has taught English there for 18 years.

Savouth Chea, who works in the building, watched as the fire destroyed the building.

"Oh, my god! That's my office," Chea said as he jumped from the blast of a shattering glass window.

Chea first saw smoke coming from the orchestra room, which he thought could be easily contained by the fire department.

"I never expected the fire to be this big," he said.

At 7 p.m., small flames still licked persistently on the roofline of the remaining section of the building.

"The wind just keeps kicking it up," said Don Young, head of the College of Education's Curriculum Research and Development group, who planned to stay until no more flames were visible.

Once summer classes are rearranged, the long-term question will be how to handle school in the fall, he said. "Right now we have no idea where we're going to go."