HONOKAI HALE — Flames licked along the makai side of Farrington Highway yesterday from a brushfire that raced within 30 feet of homes in this subdivision and another in Ko Olina and sent up a plume of gray smoke that was visible as far away as Pearl City.

About 150 residents were evacuated from their townhomes for about two hours, when the fire got to within 30 feet of homes in the Ko Olina area.

One firefighter injured an ankle. The brushfire began about 3 p.m. and burned about 400 acres. It was still going at 10 p.m. yesterday, said HFD Capt. Kenison Tejada. The fire came within 5 feet of a roadside park and flames were visible on the vacant land next to Farrington Highway on the makai side between Honokai Hale subdivision and Campbell Industrial Park. Police closed off one lane intermittently, causing traffic to back up past Ko Olina.

The fire was about a half-mile wide, Tejada said. Firefighters planned to stay well into the night putting out hot spots. The fire sent up thick black smoke and fumes from an illegal dump site.

"We're trying to catch the active flames," Tejada said. "The old dump site was our biggest concern.

"We'll be here mopping up by the homes out here until past dark."

The brushfire began by the Campbell Industrial Park exit off the highway and moved over by townhomes in the Ko Olina area.

Firefighters took their hoses through Kenneth Hess' garage on La'aloa Street yesterday. Brushfires are nothing new to Hess, who said in the 40 years he's lived in his home, this is the second time a fire has come this close.

"I keep the brush away now," Hess said. "It was like this a couple years ago, (and) that's why I keep it all clear now."

The cause of the fire was unknown, but firefighters were told by police that witnesses saw a car stop by the side of the highway and drop something. Minutes later there was a raging brushfire, Tejada said.

Lorraine Martinez, a retired animal caretaker, said she was home at the time and didn't know about the fire until her sister came home and alerted her. The 65-year-old resident said flames were shooting up right behind her yard.

"It was a runaway, frightening fire," she said. "(Firefighters) got here just in the nick of time."

Another brushfire, on the Windward side, an 85-acre blaze at the Kane'ohe Marine Base Hawai'i, started yesterday morning.

Firefighters have been kept busy this summer battling a slew of brushfires across the island. Investigators have said that many appeared to have been set intentionally. Arrests have been made in two of the fires, one which burned about 3,000 acres at the back of Nanakuli Valley.

Early last month firefighters battled two brushfires off Fort Barrette Road and a third off Fort Weaver Road that are believed to have been intentionally set.

At the end of La'aloa Street by vacant land and the brush, Cindy Sun and her family were celebrating an uncle's birthday yesterday when they saw and smelled the smoke. It seemed like forever before the firefighters arrived, she said.

"The fire was right here," Sun said. "If it came any closer, I was ready to grab my dog and my photo albums and go. You could see the flames."