Karin Stanton/Hawaii247.com Contributing Editor
County fire crews were working through Wednesday night to contain a brushfire on the eastern slopes of Mauna Kea, which had consumed at least 60 acres by 9 p.m.
Crews from the county Fire Department and U.S. Department of Forestry & Wildlife were using bulldozers to cut a break around the fire. Earlier they had been assisted by a crew from Pohakuloa Training Area and a helicopter, said Battalion Chief Raymond Rowe Jr.
“We think it jumped from a previous fire about a week ago. We don’t know how,” he said. “We had a break around the last one.”
The fire was reported Wednesday afternoon in an inaccessible area off Keanakolu Road, also known as Mana Road, near the 10 mile marker, Rowe said.
“It got started pretty late, as the weather was changing to be more favorable,” Rowe said. “It not under control and it’s not as accessible as we’d wish, but maybe by morning we’ll have the break cut.”
No structures were threatened and no injuries reported, Rowe said.
One Hawaii247.com reader wrote the smoke was thick around the 10,000-foot elevation, Hale Pohaku visitor facilities and across Mauna Kea Access Road, making driving conditions hazardous.
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[...] Road with crews from the County, U.S. Dept of Forestry and Pohakuloa working to contain it.. Update over at Hawai’i247. Posted by Andrew Cooper in Comments on Reality at 21:39 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks [...]
[...] southern-most heat source is the Kilauea ocean entry near Kalapana. The northern heat source is a brushfire — you can even see the smoke plume drifting off to the [...]