Second arson attempt destroys Mililani classroom
By Scott Ishikawa
Advertiser Central Oahu Writer
MILILANI — A Mililani High School portable classroom that burned to the ground on New Year's Day had been targeted by arsonists only a week before, on Christmas Day.
Cory Lum • The Honolulu Advertiser
Firefighters responded to Tuesday's 3:45 a.m. alarm at the school to find Portable No. 11, at the rear of the campus, engulfed in flames.
This Mililani High School portable classroom was gutted by a New Year's Day fire deliberately set from inside.
The 600-square-foot wooden structure is deemed a total loss. Damage is estimated at $125,000 to the structure and $25,000 to the contents.
"It's probably going to cost about $200,000 to build a new portable if they can't bring in another one from someplace else," Mililani High vice principal George Okino said yesterday.
Okino said someone tried to torch the same classroom Dec. 25. School custodians came back to work late last week to discover burn marks on the classroom's outside walls.
"It looked like someone tried to use a propellant to start the fire from the outside," Okino said of the Dec. 25 incident. "This time, they somehow broke into the building to light it. It had to be the same people."
Fire officials don't believe stray fireworks started the fire.
"It appears an ignitable liquid was used to start the blaze," said Honolulu Fire Department spokesman Capt. Kenison Tejada.
"The roof is layered with gravel, so I don't think an aerial landing on top of it would have started it," Okino said. "You look at the way the fire ran through the classroom, someone must have started it from the inside."
The fire singed two adjacent portable buildings, but didn't damage the interior.
The fire leaves the high school with one less classroom to deal with an already crowded campus of 2,100 students. The classroom — used to teach Japanese — was one of the school's newer portable buildings.
"The only good thing is we're on break, so we have a few weeks to figure out how to shuffle the students around," Okino said.
Mililani High students are on winter break and report back to class Jan. 14.
Meanwhile, fire officials are still investigating a blaze that damaged a Ma'ili Elementary kindergarten classroom, also on New Year's Day. The 11:23 a.m. fire caused $15,000 damage to the structure and $3,000 to its contents.
Reach Scott Ishikawa at 535-2429 or sishikawa@honoluluadvertiser.com.
