The suspect in the case, a 55-year-old 'Ewa Beach woman, was taken to The Queen's Medical Center at about 5 a.m. today for psychiatric observation, police said. Hospital staff declined to release any information on the case. Police said she has not yet been arrested.

The fire at 223 N. Kainalu Drive was reported at 2:54 p.m. yesterday. Neighbors said they saw the car fleeing the scene and then noticed white smoke coming from the home, said Fire Department spokesman Capt. Richard Soo.

Police yesterday were looking for the driver of a white car that was seen speeding from a Kailua home yesterday minutes before the home caught fire.

The woman later called a television station and confessed, police said. Police contacted her by phone and said the woman said she was at the Hilton Hawaiian Village and threatened to jump to her death from the 35th floor of the Tapa Tower.

About two dozen police officers, including a crisis negotiation team, converged on her hotel room before midnight. When negotiations failed, police broke down the door and had the woman transported to the hospital.

The woman is listed in property-tax documents as one of the owners of the Kailua house, but her most recent residential address is in 'Ewa Beach, police said.

Soo described the incident as a "classic incendiary fire" because a flammable liquid was poured in each of the home's rooms. But he said whoever started the fire didn't open any windows, so the oxygen-starved fire did not spread throughout the house.

The three-bedroom home was renovated recently and was unfurnished; its last tenants left two weeks ago, Soo said. Damage was estimated at $15,000.

Neighbors saw the woman getting into the car and noted its license number, said police Detective Robert Cravalho, who added that the car was traced to a rental company.