Fire investigators were trying to determine the cause of a spectacular fire yesterday morning in a Punchbowl apartment.

      Lusitana Apartment Fire Leaves Family Homeless  

     

 

A Micronesian family of 10, three of them children, lost everything after their apartment burned. 

 

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    The blaze engulfed the second-story walk-up unit at 1445 Lusitana St., displacing the family of 10 living there. It caused about $130,000 in damage. Firefighters responded to the alarm at 7:50 a.m. Smoke from the blaze billowed over the neighborhood and was visible for miles.

The 10 people who lived in the apartment were home at the time but escaped without injury, according to Honolulu Fire Department spokesman Capt. Terry Seelig.

Residents of the three other apartments in the building also escaped without injury. No other apartments were burned, but some sustained smoke and water damage, Seelig said.

The building is makai of the H-1 freeway near the Punchbowl onramp to the Waianae-bound lanes of the H-1. The fire was extinguished by 8:27 a.m.

Salome Pisaram, 30, who has lived in the rental apartment for two years with 3-year-old son Shawn, said she lost all her possessions, including her passport, birth certificate, money and bankbook. She works as a cook at a Waikiki eatery part time so she could stay home with her son.

Pisaram said she could start working full time, but wonders if that would even begin to repair the life she has lost. She said she may consider moving back to Chuuk.