Firefighters watching a hot spot flare up
Hawaii County Fire Department will remain at the site of the brushfire which erupted Wednesday afternoon.
The fire is completely contained, but there have been hotspots inside the fire perimeter. On Saturday, firefighters extinguished five or six hotspots, and one more Sunday morning. Fire Captain Brent Matsuda did a walkaround and survery of the perimeter Saturday afternoon and recommended fire crews stay on the scene through Sunday. Sunday at 11:30, there was a fairly large flare-up in the middle of the burned area. That’s fairly common with brushfires, as often the fire will smolder underground or in the roots of trees and then reappear.
Fire personnel will do a final walk around and perimeter survey sometime this afternoon before declaring the fire out and all units will return to their firehouses. But given the fairly large flare up around 11:30, it’s not clear that fire crews will be able to leave the site quite yet.
The cause of the fire has not been determined. The fire did start on July 4, so it’s possible fireworks were involved, but there’s no proof of that at this time.
Regarding the 5,000+ acre Pahala fires, on Sunday crews were called to check out a hotspot reported in the middle of the burn area that had flared up with lots of smoke.
