Neighbors help fight fire

By David Waite
Advertiser Staff Writer

Two residents are being credited by their neighbors for playing a large part in extinguishing an apartment fire in the lower Punchbowl area yesterday.

Firefighters answer a call at 1040 Kina'u St. after fire started on the top floor of the apartment building. Jeff Widener • The Honolulu Advertiser

Paul Coleman, who lives on the seventh floor, heard the building's fire alarm sound about 10:50 a.m., went to the exterior hallway in front of his apartment and saw smoke pouring out an apartment on the building's top floor.

Coleman went to apartment 1207 and found a resident from the unit next door trying to get in.

"He told me the door was locked and that he was going to try to find the building manager," Coleman said. "I thought to myself, 'I don't know where the manager is, but I do know there's a fire in the apartment and somebody might be in trouble,' so I tried to kick the door in."

When that didn't work, Coleman, who is 6 feet 5 and 250 pounds, backed up several steps, charged at the door, lowered his shoulder at the moment of impact and forced the door open.

"There were visible flames coming from the couch and a lot of smoke," Coleman said.

The smoke was so intense, he said, that he and the other building resident who battled the fire had to take turns standing at the apartment door using the building's firefighting apparatus to battle the blaze.

"It was one of those hose-and-nozzle things where you break the glass to get it out," Coleman said.

Fire crews assess the damage at the apartment unit and check other floors. Jeff Widener • The Honolulu Advertiser

"The fire was mostly out by then. We had gotten the dog out and opened the window to get the smoke out," said Coleman, who said he works in the real estate industry.

Lynn Mitchell, who lives on the seventh floor, said she heard the fire alarm and looked out the door to make sure it wasn't a false alarm. "I smelled smoke and thought it might be one of my neighbors burning incense. I started to look down at first and then saw all of my neighbors looking back up toward the upper floors.

"I looked up and saw the smoke, pretty heavy smoke, coming out of the window on the 12th floor," Mitchell said.

She went back into her apartment, scooped up her 5-month-old daughter, Sky, and headed for the stairwell to join neighbors who were evacuating the building.

Delton Miyamura, who does architectural drafting, heard the fire alarm, smelled smoke and looked up from his 10th-floor apartment to see smoke but no flames coming out of the window of apartment 1207.

"I knew to walk down the stairs and not to take the elevator," Miyamura said.

Miyamura, who has lived in the building for the past eight years, said all of the units are equipped with smoke detectors but that the building does not have a fire sprinkler system.

He said there was a fire in the same building three or four years ago, one that was attributed to an unattended candle. No one was injured in the previous fire, Miyamura said.

Fire officials set a damage estimate of $15,000 for the building and $15,000 for the apartment contents from yesterday's fire. The living room was the focus of their investigation.

"Normally, we don't encourage bystanders to try to fight a fire," said Capt. Kenison Tejada, a fire department spokesman. "Fortunately in this case, the resident on the 12th floor who was on the house hose has been around the fire service for 25 years and said he had been a volunteer firefighter.

"It's fortunate he had some degree of training because he and the other guy ate quite a bit of smoke while they were putting out the fire," Tejada said.

He said the fire was still smoldering when members of four fire department companies arrived at the burning apartment at 10:56 a.m. to finish putting the fire out.

Reach David Waite at dwaite@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-7412.