North Shore brush fire devours 3,000 acres

It sweeps from Mount Kaala to Waialua

Flames swept over the foothills below Mount Kaala toward Waialua town yesterday, forcing the evacuation of a Benedictine monastery and trapping 100 cows after destroying thousands of dollars in crops and equipment on Poamoho farms.

Police also notified residents of Otake Camp to be ready to evacuate if necessary.

The fire grew from 2,000 acres yesterday morning to more than 3,000 acres last night, making it the largest Oahu brush fire this season, said fire Capt. Terry Seelig.

"The fire is really uncontrollable at this point," said Sister Celeste "CC" Castro, of the Benedictine Monastery of Hawaii, at about 8:10 p.m.

"There's flames everywhere," though a distance from the monastery, she said. "We were like in the path, mainly up above us."

Winds of up to 30 mph whipped up flames, spreading it from the flat farm and brush areas to the mountainous areas. Rust-red and white clouds of smoke billowed upward, obscuring Mount Kaala, as lines of orange flames moved over hills and into gulches.

City and federal firefighters fought the fire, and its smoldering hot spots within the 3,000-plus acres. One Honolulu Fire Department helicopter and a state Department of Land and Natural Resources helicopter made water drops in areas inaccessible to ground crews.

The brush fire started Sunday afternoon off Kamehameha Highway near the road to Helemano Military Reservation, spread toward Kaukonahua Road, then jumped the road.

Rancher Bob Cherry said about 100 cows were trapped by the fire, and saw no way to get them out.

He estimated more than 1,000 acres of his 3,300-acre ranch would likely burn by the end of the night. He said he wet down his house and the grass around it and did not plan to evacuate.

In the 22 years he has lived there, he said he had not seen it get up that high up the mountainside.

"There's flames all over," he said. "It's a heck of a fire."

Yasu Kobayashi, who was born in Otake Camp and has lived there all 68 years of his life, watched as the flames climbed over the hills and into the gulches.

"I never thought in my life that fire would reach that far in the hills," he said.

The monastery, above Waialua High School, has a koa and concrete retreat pavilion chapel center and three residential units. It lost electricity and phone service at about 6:30 p.m. yesterday.

Seven nuns and monks began evacuating around 6:45 p.m. along with their dogs and birds due to the overwhelming smoke. Should the winds shift, the fire could head straight toward the buildings.

"We're just praying the fire will go around the monastery," Castro said.

Farmer James Song said he suffered more than $200,000 in losses to banana and papaya trees.

Song said he planted wild cane as an inexpensive wind break, but the thick cane burns hot and fast.

"I try catch fire," he said. "No can." The fire had damaged the water system, so he tried unsuccessfully to use buckets of water to douse the fire.

The fire burned around the Poamoho University of Hawaii Agricultural Experimental Station, Seelig said.

The fire burned the gulch Sunday behind farmer Al Santoro's farm, causing banana, papaya, avocado and mango trees to wither in the intense heat. Papayas and bunches of bananas were scorched, some still warm. Although they were not totally burned, Santoro said they were not salable, and some papaya and banana trees might not survive.

"I'm sick, I'm sick," Santoro said as he drove around the farm and saw the damaged fruit and melted irrigation lines. He estimated the damage at about $2,500 in irrigation lines and $3,000 to $4,000 in fruit and trees.

Hot spots burned along a path of wood chips on the farm yesterday afternoon.

Kai Brown, whose own mushroom farm suffered losses to a fire two months ago, went yesterday to help her brother, who was evacuating horses and farm equipment.