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The Honolulu Advertiser

Posted at 12:16 p.m., Wednesday, August 20, 2003

Ka'ena Point brush fire scorches plant habitat

By Rod Ohira
Advertiser Staff Writer

A fast-spreading, wind-driven brush fire today jumped from the Mokule'ia to the Yokohama Bay side of Ka'ena Point and burned an endangered-species plant habitat.

By mid-morning, eight Honolulu Fire Department and at least three military companies were battling the blaze on the Yokohama Bay side, where a brush fire burned 1,500 acres last weekend and threatened an Air Force satellite facility before being extinguished.

Four additional HFD units were battling the fire on the Mokule'ia side. HFD spokesman Capt. Emmit Kane said the blaze started when a 22-passenger van stuck in a off-road brush area caught fire at 10:30 p.m.

Patrick Costales, state Forestry and Wildlife manager for the O'ahu district, said the fire scorched 150 acres of critical plant habitat in and around the Kuaokala game management area on the Mokule'ia side. Many of the plants are endangered species, he said.

Brent Liesemeyer of state Forestry and Wildlife said ko'oloa'ulu, a dry-land coastal shrub, is among the endangered plants growing in the Mokule'ia fire area. Other shrubs that may be affected are the 'ohia and 'akoko, added Liesemeyer.

"What it does is also burn over (land) cover," Costales said. "When the first rain comes, it’ll wash all the residue down into the ocean. It doesn’t help the environment."

Today’s fire may have also affected an albatross nesting site located a ridge over on the Yokohama Bay side of the Kuaokala game management area.

It took 80 firefighters more than 24 hours to bring last week’s Yokohama Bay brush fire under control. It was put out at 7:15 p.m. Saturday. That fire started at Keawa'ula State Park and encroached on two state forest reserves as well as the satellite facility.

Reach Rod Ohira at 535-8181 or rohira@honoluluadvertiser.com