No residents were displaced, because only the recreational room was destroyed. Firefighters blamed strong, gusting winds for the swirling smoke and fast-moving blaze.

"The wind was blowing right through (the unit)," Tejada said.

Masami Spaulding, an employee of the Tokyo Broadcasting System who lives in the building, said she walked onto her balcony yesterday morning to investigate the smell of smoke.

"We saw white smoke and then I saw the fire," she said, waving her arms around to demonstrate how vigorously the flames burned.

Upon seeing those flames, Spaulding quickly got out of the building.

Daniel Fleishman, 28, lives in the building with his pregnant wife, Sipra. He said the fire trucks showed up outside the building even before the fire alarm went off. He and his wife took the stairs even though it was slow going.

"Being pregnant, walking down 25 floors — are you crazy?" was his wife's comment when asked about the trek.

Charles and Chris Burg of Grand Rapids, Mich., were wrapping up a five-week Hawai'i vacation and were anticipating lunch with Chris' sister, Mary Schwallier, who lives on the 21st floor of Makiki Plaza. They stopped for lunch on their way to the airport.

But the couple had barely arrived at Schwallier's door when they found themselves swept up in a building evacuation.

"We had our suitcases and got to her apartment, and we just dropped our luggage, turned around, and started right back down," said Charles Burg. "As we looked over the railing, we could see smoke and flames and we decided we'd better get out."

Moments later, the Burgs and Schwallier joined a growing crowd of residents on the street in front of the building.

Dottie Collins, building manager since last May 1, was the person who pulled the fire alarm in the lobby. She said she had no idea how many who live in the building's 131 units were evacuated because many residents had already left for work.

"There were a lot of people out on the street, but it was hard to tell if they were all from this building or from the neighbor building," she said.

The building is not equipped with a fire sprinkler system, Tejada said.

It's estimated that about 300 residential high-rise buildings in Honolulu do not have sprinkler systems, all of them built before a 1975 law requiring sprinklers in buildings higher than 75 feet. Retrofitting an individual condominium unit can run into the thousands of dollars; renovating an entire building could cost more than $1 million.

Yesterday, during a 45-minute wait to return to their units, some residents took the opportunity to get acquainted with neighbors they hadn't known before.

"I met some really nice new neighbor ladies," said Holly Tamashiro, who has lived on the 17th floor for the past four years. "They're going to our next AOAO (meeting of the association of apartment owners) so that we can voice our opinions on how things were handled."

Tamashiro's opinion? Everyone involved "did an awesome job," she said.

Damage was estimated at $500,000 to the building and contents, Tejada said. Collins was relieved that the fire had been contained quickly, damage apparently was light and there were no injuries.