Inferno at gas station averted by employee
By Will Hoover
Advertiser Staff Writer
A Kahala gas station sustained an estimated $100,000 dollars in damage yesterday morning after a 1991 Lincoln Town Car became engulfed in flames that ignited two of the stations' 10 pumps.
Marjorie Mariano • Special to The Advertiser
Firefighters said the intensely volatile situation at the Wai'alae Chevron at 4117 Wai'alae Ave. could have been worse but for the quick thinking of the station cashier, who turned off the power.
Firefighters responded to a car fire at the Waialae Chevron Gas Station on Waialae Avenue yesterday morning that ignited and destroyed two gas pumps. The station is closed for repairs.
Honolulu Fire Department Capt. Richard Soo said the driver of a 1991 Lincoln Town Car pulled in shortly after 7 a.m. and "put his gas cap in the nozzle handle so the pump would continue to dispense gas while he went into the mini market to get coffee. He bypassed the safety feature of the pump.
"When he turned around, he saw his car on fire. We don't know the cause of the fire."
Station owner Barney Robinson said the driver "ran out and tried to pull the hose out of the car. And once he did that — since the trigger was still propped open — it was just like a flame thrower."
It was then that the car owner burned both hands and the fire began to rage out of control, Soo said.
Cashier Lalago Lalau-Byrd, who had just come on duty, dashed outside and hit an emergency switch that shut down the pumps and the station's electricity. She dialed 911 on the car owner's cell phone.
"Oh yeah, I was scared," said Lalau-Byrd. "The gas station was going to blow up — that's what I thought."
Soo said the alarm came in at 7:04 a.m. and three fire engines and one ladder truck responded. The fire was under control by 7:15 a.m., he said.
Robinson, calling Lalau-Byrd "the hero of the day, month and year," said the 26-year-old's decisive action likely averted what could have been a disaster.
"There are safety measures that are supposed to prevent that sort of thing from happening, but you never know what could happen," Robinson said. "I'll tell you, 10 minutes of fire burning at a gas station is an eternity."
The Lincoln was, Soo said, "a total burned-out shell." Two pumps and parts of the station were extensively damaged.
The driver, whose name was not released, was treated at Straub Hospital for second-degree burns and minor burns and released.
