Beat cops rouse sleepers to flee burning home
By Vicki Viotti
Advertiser Staff Writer
Police officers who smelled smoke while patrolling their Kaimuki beat shortly before 6 a.m. yesterday roused a sleeping family, urging them to flee the fire that, despite drenching rain, destroyed their 12th Avenue home.
Richard Ambo • The Honolulu Advertiser
Keau Curry also heard flames popping in a nearby bedroom, and that sent him running through the house, alerting other family members.
Sheltering from the rain in a neighbor's carport, residents who lost their home talk to police and firefighters.
"I got my cousin," he said, indicating Chaz Bautista, huddling beneath a carport across from their charred six-bedroom house at 625-A 12th Ave. "He ran down the hall, and we got out Auntie and Papa."
"Papa" is 71-year-old Carl Hanohano, who is wheelchair bound, and his daughter, Carlette Luka, is "Auntie." Usually six people live in the home, a duplex converted to a sprawling single-family residence, but the other relatives, a woman and baby, were staying elsewhere on Monday night, Luka said.
The family declined Red Cross offers of hotel accommodations, said Capt. Kenison Tejada, HFD spokesman, but will need food and clothing donations. Damage was estimated at $150,000 to the building and $30,000 to its contents. Investigators said the fire was caused by an electrical short-circuit.
Bautista said the fire broke out in his bedroom, but that he was sleeping elsewhere in the house.
The fire was reported at 5:42 a.m. The first engine company arrived four minutes later. Nine fire units were called, including a hazmat unit for precaution, Tejada said.
Police officers Wally Salazar and Pat Romero arrived first and yelled for the residents to flee. Another patrol officer, Shinichi Masaki, then entered the house to ensure that everyone was out.
