Fire damages Mo'ili'ili apartments
By Mike Gordon
Advertiser Staff Writer
An early-morning fire displaced residents of three apartments yesterday on Old Wai'alae Road near the Hawaiian Humane Society and snarled traffic on the first day of classes at the University of Hawai'i-Manoa.
Richard Ambo • The Honolulu Advertiser
The American Red Cross was helping with emergency needs and temporary shelter for the seven people who lived in the complex.
Firefighters clean up after putting out the flames at a two-story apartment complex in Mo'ili'ili. Damage was estimated at $165,000.
Nine fire units and 35 firefighters responded to the 7:02 a.m. alarm at 2819 Old Wai'alae Road, said Battalion Chief James Arciero.
The cause of the fire was still under investigation, but Arciero said residents reported seeing flickering lights before the blaze.
Damage was estimated at $150,000 to the building and $15,000 to its contents, said Capt. Kenison Tejada, spokesman for the Honolulu Fire Department.
Residents and neighbors of the two-story unit said they started smelling smoke about 6:30 a.m.
But not Kyle Kawafuchi, who was asleep in the burning apartment.
"I woke up to pounding on the door," he said. "Someone was yelling 'fire!' "
Kawafuchi, who is from California, moved into the unit about a week ago. As he stood in the alley outside the fire-gutted apartment, dressed only in his surf trunks, Kawafuchi said he was supposed to be getting ready for school at UH, "but I don't think I'm going."
Chad Takashima, a neighbor, woke up to the smell of smoke. He helped other neighbors who were trying to douse the fire with garden hoses and got so close that the flames left his face pink and red.
"There were big flames," he said. "My neighbors were yelling 'fire!' By that time there were flames shooting out the windows."
Renee Ishii, another neighbor, ran up a narrow stairwell and shouted at a woman to get out of the apartment next to one that was in flames.
"I tried to tell her the smoke is coming in, you need to get out, now," Ishii said.
The woman told Ishii she wasn't ready to leave yet.
"There was no urgency in her voice," Ishii said. "Thank goodness the police got there. I think they knocked her door down."
Reach Mike Gordon at mgor don@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8012.
