Five families — 11 adults and one child — were displaced by the fire, according to a statement released by the American Red Cross. Food and clothing were provided for those residents, and two of the families also were given temporary shelter because they had nowhere else to go, the agency said.

HFD received the call at 10:20 a.m. yesterday. By the time units responded 2 minutes later, the fire at 1634 Makiki Street was roaring. Firefighters believe the blaze started in Apartment 701, but said they will wait until investigators complete their inquiry before pinpointing the fire's origin. The fire burned apartments 701, 801, 901, 1001, and 1101.

"An automatic sprinkler system would have stopped the spread of the fire," said HFD Capt. Kennison Tejada. "That's the thing we really needed today."

Tejada said the building was in compliance with city building codes. No immediate damage estimate was available yesterday.

Mailelani Lee, a blind, elderly woman who lives with her sister in Apartment 301, four floors below the fire, was carried out of the building by two police officers. She said she was not alarmed by the smell of smoke or the alarms.

She was, however, upset about being forced to sit across the street while firefighters finished putting out the fire.

"It's no picnic," she said, shaking her head.

Darryl Oku, a 42-year-old sheriff, said he heard an alarm and saw smoke coming from the building while he was picking up branches at his family's apartment complex across the street. He said that after calling 911, he ran to the building and started yelling for occupants to get out.

"That's devastating for the families," he said as he watched flames consume the 11th-floor apartment.

At 10:45 a.m. yesterday, flames could be seen from H-1 Freeway leaping over the mauka side of the 11-story building. The structure, shaped like a shoebox turned on its side, was mostly unharmed save for those five units.

Thick black smoke billowed from the 9th, 10th, and 11th floors as flames framed each of the burning apartments' glass windows, which cracked and popped in the heat. Residents in the neighborhood, which is made up of a mix of low- and high-rise residential buildings, gathered in the streets behind police barriers to watch.

Prior to 1975, high-rise residential buildings were not required to include automatic sprinkler systems. In 1975, a law was passed requiring that all buildings taller than 75 feet be built with sprinkler systems. Firefighters and a city official estimate there are more than 200 residential high-rises on O'ahu that do not have sprinkler systems.

Richard Soo, a retired fire captain, said the majority of the buildings without sprinkler systems are in the Makiki and Salt Lake areas. He said yesterday's fire made him fear for the safety of firefighters working in buildings without sprinklers.

"As a retired firefighter, this is a firefighter's nightmare what I saw today," said Soo, who was at the scene. "It just brings to mind my wish to fully sprinkle high-rise buildings throughout O'ahu."