Man rescued after blaze engulfs boat

A Kailua man was rescued Saturday after his powerboat caught on fire in Kaneohe Bay and sent up a thick plume of black smoke that could be seen for miles.

Federal, state and county officials responded to the scene.

Firefighters said the man jumped into the water to avoid the flames and was picked up by good Samaritans. He was eventually brought back to shore unscathed by Marine Corps Base Hawaii Waterfront Operations, said Honolulu Fire Department Capt. Michael Jones.

The man’s wife, reached by phone, said, “It’s been a bad day,” adding, “We lost our boat.”

She said that according to her husband, the “boat backfired and the engine caught on fire.”

Jones said the fire started about 2 miles offshore of Heeia Kea Pier near the Kaneohe sand bar at about 11:49 a.m.

Some 25 firefighters responded and found a roughly 27-foot boat engulfed in flames, Jones said. Firefighters used a helicopter to dump water on the flames and extinguished hot spots from a boat and personal watercraft, using a floating submersible water pump.

He said firefighters arrived just before noon and brought the fire under control at 1:01 p.m. Jones said it took time for the firefighters to bring the rescue boat and watercraft to the scene as well as to launch the helicopter.

Firefighters extinguished the blaze at 2:02 p.m. Firefighters did not determine a cause.

By the time the fire was extinguished, the boat was aground about 200 yards from shore in the area of Kahaluu Pond.

Jones said the Coast Guard and state Department of Land and Natural Resources responded after the Fire Department notified the agencies as part of normal procedures for shipboard incidents.

DLNR spokeswoman Deborah Ward said the Oahu boating manager was trying to get in touch with the boat owner, who is responsible for removing the boat.

She said the boat, Serenity Now, was registered to a Kailua resident.

Kahaluu resident Walter Wright said he was driving home when he saw a “big towering plume of black smoke.”

He said the boat was drifting as it burned and traveled about 400 yards while on fire before becoming stuck on the inside of a reef. The boat’s fiberglass hull appeared to dissolve in the flames.

“That boat melted like a marshmallow over a bonfire,” Wright said.