Posted on: Sunday, January 30, 2005
Cause of fatal fire still a mystery
By Will Hoover
Advertiser Staff Writer
Efren and Tamara Unabia stood in their water-soaked, two-bedroom, fifth-floor Coral Terrace apartment in Waikiki yesterday and pondered the havoc caused by a fatal fire in the apartment directly above them the night before.
Bruce Asato • The Honolulu Advertiser Yet the couple's attention was focused on what had happened upstairs late Friday.
"It's like the sixth floor is jinxed," said Efren, who is also the apartment manager, as his wife nodded in agreement.
"About six months ago or so a lady in the corner apartment, 602, died in her sleep. And then, in the unit right next to it, 601, the guy there was taken to the hospital and died on Christmas Eve. And then, last night, it happened in 604."
Exactly what happened in apartment 604 remains unclear, according to Honolulu Fire Capt. Kenison Tejada. HFD investigators Warren Iseke and Terio Bumanglag said they had not yet determined the cause of the blaze, but had found nothing to suggest foul play.
Bruce Asato • The Honolulu Advertiser Tejada said the man, 60, was unresponsive, and was later pronounced dead at the scene. A woman who had been found lying in the hallway earlier by building residents was taken to Straub Medical Center. Her condition yesterday was not available.
The Unabias described the couple who lived above them as "nice people" who were both heavy smokers.
The extreme damage was in the master bedroom, Capt. Tejada said. The explosion was thought to have been caused by one of several oxygen tanks in the apartment. The blast, he said, was intense enough to shatter the toilet.
Friday's fire fatality in Waikiki was the first of 2005. An extraordinary number of fire deaths were recorded in Honolulu last year: There were 14 building structure deaths in 2004, compared with one such death in '03; three in '02; and two in '01.
Source: Honolulu Fire Department One person who was rocked by the blast was Fonsa Hokulani, 67, who lives on the 10th floor of the Aloha Lani, adjacent to the Coral Terrace.
She said watching the raging inferno from her balcony 50 feet across the way was one of the frightening experiences of her life — more so, she claimed, than dashing from enemy bullets and bombs as a child on Palau during World War II.
"This was even scarier than that," said Hokulani, who was still shaken by the incident hours later. "It started out slow, and there was this crackling, and then very fast it turned into this wall of fire — whoosh! — going up the building. And then there were the explosions.
"I'm still very scared. If I had the money, I'd move to Palau tonight."
Tejada said the damage to Apartment 604 and its contents was estimated at around $225,000 — although that amount didn't include fire and water damage to nearby units.
It was the second fire in as many days at a Honolulu highrise without an automatic sprinkler system. A fire in Makiki on Thursday caused more than $1 million in damage, destroyed five apartments, and left a dozen people displaced.
Retired veteran HFD Capt. Richard Soo said the back-to-back fires should serve as a wake-up call for the community and lawmakers to create tax incentives to defray costs to high-rise homeowners to install sprinklers in apartments built before the 1975 sprinkler law went to effect.
"In my career I've seen the difference that a self-activating high-rise sprinkler system makes for the safety of the emergency workers," said Soo. "I don't want to open up the paper and see where a firefighter or police officer has died in one of these unsprinkled buildings."
The moisture dripping steadily from the ceiling wasn't as heavy as the rain showers outside, but it was unnerving. Waste baskets, pots, pans and containers positioned about the rooms weren't enough to catch the excess. Just about everything in the 2222 Aloha Drive apartment — carpet, furniture, belongings — was ruined.
A man in an upstairs apartment looks down to a sixth-floor unit, the scene of a late-night fatal fire in the Coral Terrace apartment building.
"When the guys went up and entered the apartment, they came across the body of a gentleman. He was right inside the doorway. And immediately after they took him out, the door closed behind them, and then they heard an explosion."
Tamara and Efren Unabia examine damage to their apartment, which is directly under the unit where Friday night's fire is believed to have started. Plastic bags cover their furniture, TV and other electronic items to protect from the dripping water. At far right is their friend, Luis Santos, who came to help with the cleanup.
"We believe the firefighters could have been hurt if the door had not gone shut," Tejada said. "Some people felt the concussion, so it was pretty powerful."
First fatal fire
