The Hawai'i County Fire Department last night completed a house-to-house check and reported no homes were burned, although officials told residents to expect smoke damage.

The fire was no longer an immediate threat to Waikoloa Village, but county Civil Defense authorities advised residents to avoid the area because of heavy smoke. Roadblocks on Waikoloa Road stopped traffic on the mauka side of the village, with local traffic only allowed on the makai side of the road.

Those who had nowhere to go were welcomed at shelters established at the Waimea Community Center and the Hilton Waikoloa.

Updates on school and highway openings were expected at 6 a.m. today.

Civil Defense officials had ordered the evacuation of approximately 650 houses and condominium units at about 1:35 p.m. yesterday after the fire, which began Monday in the Lalamilo Farm lots, jumped two fire breaks and raced toward Waikoloa Village with help from steady northeast winds. Fire Chief Darryl Oliveira predicted the flames would consume more than 25,000 acres by the time the blaze burns itself out.

The cause of the fire is not known.

Some residents reported they had little warning to flee the danger.

"It was burning right outside our home," said Linda Harlow, who lives in a Waikoloa Hills condominium near the intersection of Waikoloa Road and Paniolo Avenue. "People were trying to grab what they could. We had, like, five minutes."

"It just came so close," she said. "The smoke was so thick that you really couldn't see anything."

At the request of Gov. Linda Lingle, federal authorities issued a disaster declaration that will make federal funding available to pay up to 75 percent of the firefighting costs, according to a statement from Michael Brown, undersecretary of Homeland Security for Emergency Preparedness and Response.

FIRE SPREADS QUICKLY

The fire was first reported at 2 p.m. Monday as a 100-acre brushfire at the farm lots south of Waikoloa Stream. It initially moved west away from Mamalahoa Highway, but then began to burn in a more southerly direction toward Waikoloa Village. By midmorning yesterday, the fire had consumed an estimated 8,000 acres.

Officials said dry weather and winds of 10 to 20 mph with gusts of up to 30 mph made the firefighting difficult. Persistent dry conditions led Mayor Harry Kim in May to declare a state of emergency for the entire Big Island after the National Weather Service reported rainfall in some areas was half of normal levels or less.

The most serious threat began when the blaze jumped a fire break at 11:30 a.m. and then another break two hours later, said Deputy Fire Chief Desmond Wery. That put the fire within yards of some homes, and the evacuation was ordered. Fire crews were able to beat back the flames at the edge of Waikoloa Village, and the only property burned was some wooden fence posts at Waikoloa Stables.

By early afternoon, Harlow said, "there was smoke and soot all over everything, and within an hour we were evacuated."

Harlow's husband, Al, is pastor of the Waikoloa Community Church on Paniolo Drive, and the couple immediately went to the church to open it for use as an emergency shelter.

Cheryl Vanni, a clerk at Waikoloa Elementary School, said parents began calling or arriving at about 1 p.m. to pick up their children early because of evacuations or the threat of evacuation. The school day ended as scheduled at 2:05 p.m. before the school was activated as a temporary shelter that assisted 200 to 300 people.

RESIDENTS PACK UP

Waikoloa resident Healani Kimitete-Ah Mow left work early to return home after she heard a radio announcement warning residents to prepare for evacuation. She arrived to find the fire had almost reached Paniolo Avenue near Waikoloa Road, with four helicopters circling the blaze to make water drops. She and her neighbors packed some things, although she estimated the fire was still several miles from her home.

"It doesn't really look like it's a danger right now, but the smoke is really black in the sky," she said.

The afternoon closure of Waikoloa Road caused a traffic jam on Queen Ka'ahumanu Highway that extended seven miles from the Kawaihae junction south toward Kona.

NUMEROUS FRONTS

Crews on county and private bulldozers worked last night to surround the town with a 30-foot-wide fire break, and Civil Defense officials kept the street closed east of the village to use the road as yet another fire break and allow fire crews to move freely.

"Basically, we're letting it just burn out tonight," Wery said.

Firefighters also were monitoring or actively battling the fire on other fronts, including the northern edge near the 'Ouli area, and on an eastern front near Pu'upa.

The fire burned in areas that were used for live-fire training during World War II, and Fire Battalion Chief Curtis Matsui said the fire department decided not to deploy personnel on foot in some areas because of concern about unexploded bombs.

Other major brushfires in recent years include a 10,000-acre blaze in July 2003 that forced some residents near South Point to evacuate, and another in August 1999 that burned similar acreage in North Kona.

In 1990, 16,000 acres burned near South Point Road and in 1985, 20,000 acres near Pu'uwa'awa'a were blackened by a brush fire.