Three O'ahu homes were destroyed or heavily damaged in fires yesterday as power was being restored to those neighborhoods, and at least one of the blazes was related to the islandwide blackout.

A Kane'ohe homeowner boiling water forgot to turn off the stove when the power went out, and when the electricity returned, the heat from the stove caused some nearby combustible material to catch fire, authorities said.

A second fire at a Kapolei home started at the kitchen stove, but firefighters couldn't determine the cause.

No injuries were reported in any of the incidents, but families living in the three destroyed or heavily damaged residences, including two houses in Kane'ohe and one in Kapolei, had to find other accommodations because of the destruction.

Fire Capt. Earle Kealoha Jr. said investigators had not determined the causes of the blazes, but the two fires in Kane'ohe were reported minutes after those neighborhoods got their power back about noon yesterday. Crews were battling one of the Kane'ohe blazes when a call came in about another one roughly six miles away, prompting some firefighters at the first scene to respond to the second.

The fires were the exception to what police and other public-safety officials described as a night relatively free of major incidents during the islandwide blackout.

For the most part, people took the outage in stride, police and other emergency personnel got good marks for responding quickly and O'ahu's communications network was able to handle the bulk of the phone traffic, officials said.

Besides the fires, probably the biggest problem was traffic congestion Friday night, thanks to some 800-plus traffic lights going dark as people were heading home or enjoying a beginning-of-the-weekend night on the town.

HECTIC, BUT NO MAJOR ISSUES

But despite near gridlock conditions in some spots during the first few hours of the blackout, no major traffic accidents were reported. Likewise, no major crimes were reported.

And several cell-phone carriers said they were largely able to handle their calling traffic, though some sporadic outages occurred when tower sites lost power as backup batteries died or emergency generators ran low on fuel.

One carrier, Mobi PCS, said it had its busiest day since entering the Hawai'i market in 2006, with more than 2.5 million calls placed and a record number of text messages sent.

"Obviously, folks were depending on the system once the power failed," said Ed Kurzenski, Mobi vice president and chief technical officer.

Most of the calls that ambulance dispatchers got in the first few hours following the blackout were not for acute medical emergencies but were from people wanting crews to check on sick relatives, needing help to get to a hospital because they didn't have power for their medical devices or seeking other assistance. But nothing major was reported.

"We have been lucky," said Bobby Pedro, Emergency Medical Services district chief as he sat in the city's emergency operations center shortly after noon yesterday.

In the first three hours of the blackout, 42 of the 115 calls received by the fire department were because of people stuck in elevators, said city spokesman Bill Brennan.

Coordination between state emergency officials and other agencies, including Hawaiian Electric Co., and the release of information to the public went smoother this time around compared with O'ahu's last islandwide outage in 2006, a state civil defense representative said.

OFFICIALS BETTER PREPARED

Unlike two years ago, when the state's emergency operations center at Diamond Head was just launching around-the-clock operations, four workers already were in place because of 24/7 staffing and were able to quickly mobilize others, said Ray Lovell, a civil defense spokesman.

Also unlike two years ago, the state immediately dispatched someone to HECO, resulting in outage-related information more quickly getting to civil defense officials, who in turn could relay the news to the public via radio stations that were on the air.

Also, HECO stationed a spokesman at KSSK, one of the two designated primary emergency radio stations, through the night, keeping listeners updated with accurate information.

"The system worked much more smoothly this time," Lovell said.

At an afternoon news conference, Gov. Linda Lingle praised the Honolulu Police Department and said the entire police force contributed to the general calm on O'ahu during the blackout.

"Everybody seemed to be obeying the rules," she said.

FIRES SCORCH SEVERAL HOMES

What marred that calm were the fires. The worst ones happened yesterday as power was being restored: