O'ahu house fires leave 20 homeless
By Scott Ishikawa and Karen Blakeman
Advertiser Staff Writers
A midday fire in Tantalus yesterday added two more to the number left homeless from house fires on O'ahu.
Richard Ambo • The Honolulu Advertiser
Including a Kane'ohe blaze Friday evening, the fires left 20 people homeless. The Kane'ohe fire on Makalani Street destroyed three homes.
Kameo Sugioka's Kane'ohe home was destroyed by a fire that began at his neighbor's house on Makalani Street late Friday night. A third house also was leveled in the blaze.
No one was injured in either fire.
In yesterday's fire, nine fire units and 27 firefighters responded to the 11:45 a.m. Tantalus blaze at 3860 Round Top Drive. The fire was brought under control at 12:10 p.m., but not before it gutted the upper floor of the two-story, four-bedroom house.
The home, belonging to the Brash family estate, had been rented out to two male tenants, ages 38 and 42. Neither man was home at the time of the fire.
Because there are no fire hydrants near the top of Round Top Drive, fire crews had to shuttle water uphill in their trucks to put out the blaze.
Honolulu Fire Department spokesman Capt. Richard Soo said the fire began in the master bedroom. Damage to the home and contents is estimated at $100,000.
The cause of the fire was under investigation yesterday.
Just returned home
Richard Ambo • The Honolulu Advertiser
Kameo "Chop-Chop" Sugioka, 81, and his 72-year-old wife, Alice, had only been at home about half an hour Friday evening when they realized their neighbor's house at 45-453 Makalani St. was burning.
A mailbox survived a three-alarm fire Friday that destroyed three Kane'ohe homes.
"I was inside the door, cleaning my tools, and my wife was in the parlor, looking at the television, Sugioka said. "Someone came to the door and my wife said, 'Let's get out! Fire! Fire!' "
Within moments, Sugioka's home since 1957 was also burning. By the end of the night, his house and the two houses on the lot next door looked like rubble from a war zone.
Sugioka said the flames, which firefighters said were fueled by propane tanks at the neighbor's house, climbed well over 20 feet above the structures.
His nephew, Jay Oyama, said he got calls from friends who lived miles away, saying they could see flames in his uncle's neighborhood, arching over the utility poles.
"It's a good thing no one was home over there," Sugioka said, nodding toward the neighboring lot. A blackened shrine stood at the front of the lot, a rosary still draped around the melted robes of a plastic saint.
The charred hulls of two houses rose behind it.
"They burned so fast, no one could have made it out," Sugioka said.
Calling it the largest structure fire so far this year, Soo said damage in the Kane'ohe blaze totaled more than $500,000.
Fire investigators are still trying to determine the cause of the fire, but believe the 10:23 p.m. blaze originated in a laundry room between two of the homes.
Richard Ambo • The Honolulu Advertiser
Soo said 45 firefighters responded to the three-alarm fire. The fire was so intense and widespread that crews stayed at the scene past 3 a.m. yesterday.
Fire crews had to haul water up Tantalus to fight a midday blaze yesterday. The blaze gutted the second floor of a home.
Neighbor Joy Lindsey said the flames were three stories high, and the homes burned to the ground in minutes. Firefighters had problems getting to the back house and had to use a side street to reach it.
Damage to the original home at 45-453 Makalani St. was estimated at $180,000, the rear home at $235,000, and the neighboring home at $120,000, Soo said.
Red Cross assists
Sixteen people, half of them children, lived in the two houses on the lot: 11 in the front house and five in the back.
Red Cross workers worked through the weekend to find housing for Sugioka's neighbors. The Red Cross had a busy weekend; it also offered assistance to a man left homeless in the fire on Tantalus and helped families displaced overnight Friday by a water main break on Pua Lane.
