A brushfire in Makaha started a little after 3 this afternoon, as seen from the 19th floor of Makaha Valley Towers. The fire has since spread and about 50 firefighters are battling the blaze. JIM RICHARDSON | The Honolulu Advertiser

The fire was burning several hundred yards away from the 20-story Makaha Valley Towers apartment complex, but did not immediately threaten the building, said Capt. Frank Johnson, a Honolulu Police Department spokesman.

Smoke from the fire, however, was blowing toward the building, and officials advised residents to leave the area.

"I grabbed my teddy bear and my blanket and left," said Chasity Davis, a Makaha Valley Towers resident who was moving down Kili Drive away from the fire just before 6 p.m.

Shortly after she got home from work about 5:30 p.m., security guards started moving through the building and telling people to leave, she said. "It was very smoky in there," she said.

Johnson said the Fire Department had not ordered an evacuation of the building, but advised residents to move away from the smoke.

"You can see the smoke right between the buildings there," he said. "So we feel that the prudent thing for people is to move because it doesn't make sense to hang out in the smoke."

The fire appeared to be several hundred yards above the buildings along Kili Drive, the main entrance into the western side of Makaha Valley.

About 50 firefighters from a dozen units were fighting the blaze, Johnson said. Many of them had set up a perimeter area around the building to prevent the flames from advancing in that direction.

As the sun set, flames on the hillside behind the building appeared to be climbing about 20 feet into the sky, witnesses said.

The fire started about 3 p.m. and had burned about 100 acres of brush land as of 6:30 p.m., Johnson said.