Posted at 7:53 a.m., Friday, July 14, 2006
First major brushfire appears extinguished
Advertiser Staff
The first major brushfire of the year, which charred more than a 1,000 acres and crept close to an Air Force satellite tracking station at Ka'ena Point, appears to be extinguished, a fire official said this morning."A fly-over by the battalion chief showed the fire is contained and more or less extinguished," said fire Capt. Sigmund Oka.
Oka said firefighters will monitor the area to prevent the fire from flaring up again and that the state Department of Land and Naturalization is expected to send "a small crew" into the area to check on things.
"But at this time, there are no plans to send Honolulu Fire Department companies back into the area today, and air support operations have been cancelled," Oka said.
At the peak of the blaze yesterday, more than 80 firefighters on the ground and six helicopters overhead battled the blaze. No structures were damaged and no injuries reported, officials said.
More than 700 brushfires were reported on O'ahu last year, many of them along the Leeward Coast. More than 80 percent of the fires appeared to have been deliberately set, fire officials have said.
