Hawaiian Residents Return Home After Crews Contain Wind-Swept Wildfire

Firefighters have contained a wind-swept wildfire that was threatening about 200 homes on the Hawaiian island of Kauai, authorities said late Monday night, and an evacuation notice for the area has been lifted.

The fire burned 1.56 square miles of land between Hanapepe and Kaumakani, the County of Kauai said in a social media post. Firefighters said one building — a shed that wasn’t attached to a home — was destroyed by the fire.

The fire was reported around noon in the Hanapepe area, about 3 miles to the east of Kaumakani, Kauai Mayor Derek Kawakami said Monday. It was spreading fast, and officials warned residents in the Kaumakani area of the need to flee by activating a siren system and sending authorities door-to-door as well as notifying them by phone calls and texts, Kawakami said.

Fire crews dropped water from helicopters and used heavy machinery to create breaks to prevent the fire from spreading. They also tried to stop the fire on the ground, the mayor said. Electricity was cut off to users on the west side of the island because of the fire.

The blaze was fully contained just before midnight, officials said. Kauai Fire Department crews stayed on site to maintain a fire watch, and sensors were installed in the area to detect any flare-ups.

Chad Machado, who owns JP’s Pizza with his son in Kaumakani, was making dough while the shop was closed Monday when he noticed the fire up in the mountains.

“Within half an hour, it was two football fields away,” he said. He and son tried to stick around, shooting water around the shop. But the smoke got too bad, so they went home to Kekaha.

“People were running out with suitcases, it was utter chaos,” he said. “So much smoke we couldn’t breathe.”

He said the community is a former sugar plantation community and landowners were using tractors to push the fire away, similar to what they did during the plantation era.

This wildfire comes nearly a year after flames tore through the historic town of Lahaina, killing more than 100 people, incinerating some 3,000 buildings and displacing 12,000 residents. The Aug. 8 wildfire was the deadliest to hit the United States in more than a century.