Nanakuli fire destroys 2 homes
By Will Hoover
Advertiser Leeward O'ahu Writer
NANAKULI — A fire that destroyed two houses at 87-1428 Akowai Road yesterday is the latest in a string of misfortunes that have plagued this small residential complex at the base of the Wai'anae mountains.
Richard Ambo • The Honolulu Advertiser
Six adult residents in the F unit and a woman and a dog in the G unit all escaped unharmed, said Fire Capt. Kenison Tejada. He said the fire was reported shortly after 6 a.m. and that firefighters were on the scene by 6:13 a.m. and had the fire under control 18 minutes later.
Left homeless by the fire, Audrey Bartholomew surveys the damage. The Red Cross has provided a hotel room for her for three days.
Several hours after the fire was extinguished, Audrey Bartholomew, 73, whose G unit was destroyed, was trying to sort out her own next move.
"Thank God nobody was hurt in the latest fire," said Bartholomew, who escaped with her 158-pound rottweiler, Eyes Kahapea.
"I went inside after the fire was out and looked around, and this is the only thing I found." Bartholomew opened her right hand and displayed a small jade pendant that she had plucked from the rubble.
"Everything else was lost."
She was sitting with a half-dozen residents beneath a kiawe tree where chickens clucked and scratched in the dirt of the small circular compound of 11 one-story dwellings. The residents talked about all that's happened there in the past seven months.
"I've lived here for six years and until this last year there was never any trouble out here," said Deana Hagmoc, who lives in N unit and called 911 when she noticed the flames between the F and G units yesterday morning.
The misfortune began May 13 when a 10-ton boulder from the steep slope behind the complex nearly smashed into unit M during heavy rain. Authorities evacuated 39 people from the complex for fear more could follow.
Although no one was hurt and experts later took measures to secure the slope, compound residents were left with the uneasy feeling that the boulders from the crumbling range might rain down again. One enforcement officer for the Department of Land and Natural Resources compared living at the complex to playing Russian roulette.
On Nov. 4 a fire that broke out in the duplex containing units A and B left 19-year-old resident Frank Krzyska Jr. dead and two families without a place to stay.
"My life has been one tragedy after another this year," said Belinda Anderson, Krzyska's aunt, whose family was living in the B unit.
"This is two fires in the past two months. And the kids witnessed it all. My son Joseph, who just turned 11, was here when they brought my nephew's body out. I had to get him counseling after that."
Anderson said yesterday's fire further traumatized Joseph, and upset his older brother, Brandon, 13, and younger sister, Shadow, 7.
She said her marriage broke up after the Nov. 4 fire and now she's trying to raise her family on the money she makes as a worker at a local drug and alcohol treatment center. She and her three children are temporarily living with friends in the H unit.
Richard Ambo • The Honolulu Advertiser
Hagmoc, Anderson and others at the compound say they think apprehension might be alleviated if firefighters would return to the compound and speak to children there about fire safety.
This small jade pendant was all that Audrey Bartholomew could recover from her burned home.
Damage to the two units was estimated at $225,000. "According to witnesses, the fire started in a common storage area between the F and G units," said Tejada.
He said the fire's cause is being studied, but that investigators did not suspect foul play.
Bartholomew said people from the Red Cross were putting her up at the Honolulu Airport Hotel for the next three days. After that, she said, she wasn't sure where she would be staying.
"Maybe the beach," she said.
Still, Bartholomew left room for the prospect that something better than homelessness might come along for her and her dog . Like others sitting around the park bench, she was holding out hope.
As Anderson put it, "Maybe something good will happen here in 2005."
Reach Will Hoover at 525-8038 or whoover@honoluluadvertiser.com.
