Mom wakes to find 3-month-old dead

A Waipahu mother fell asleep while breast-feeding her 3-month-old son Sunday and awoke to find him dead, police said.

The woman told police that both she and her son fell asleep sometime before 5:50 p.m. The boy was unresponsive when the mother awoke, police said.

Paramedics pronounced the child dead at the scene.

2 Big Isle brush fires burn 540 acres

A brush fire that closed Mamalahoa Highway 190 burned about 500 acres yesterday, the Fire Department said.

The highway, which had been closed from the 27-mile marker to the 30-mile marker, reopened at 6:30 p.m., Big Island Civil Defense said.

The fire was reported at 11:37 p.m. Saturday and continued to burn out of control yesterday afternoon on vacant state land and land owned by Hualalai Development.

Two private bulldozers helped build firebreaks, and two Fire Department helicopters dropped water on the blaze. The Fire Department also set backfires to contain the brush fire.

Meanwhile, firefighters extinguished a 40-acre brush fire in Kau on Sunday night.

The fire broke out on Cane Haul Road at about 6:31 p.m. When firefighters from the Pahala station arrived on scene, they found a "fast-moving fire in tall grass with about two acres involved," according to a news release.

The National Park Service and a bulldozer and backhoe assisted in creating firebreaks to contain the fire on vacant grassland. The fire was reported under control at 10:01 p.m. and extinguished at 10:17 p.m.

Smoke from Maui blaze closes road

A brush fire on Maui yesterday closed a section of Baldwin Avenue between Holomua Road and Skill Village because of heavy smoke.

The blaze was one of three that kept Maui firefighters busy yesterday.

The Paia fire, reported at 12:22 p.m., was in a sugar cane field, said Mahina Martin, county spokeswoman.

But traffic between Paia and Haliimaile was cut off, Martin said.

The Fire Department helicopter assisted in fighting the fire, and heavy equipment from Hawaiian Commercial and Sugar Co. was used to cut firebreaks.

Another brush fire broke out at 1:40 p.m. in a cane field off Mokulele Highway but did not close the roadway.

Firefighters battled a third brush fire in Lahaina which was 80 percent contained yesterday afternoon. The fire was reported shortly before midnight Sunday on vacant land mauka of the Lahaina Civic Center. About 130 acres burned.

No structures were damaged in any of the fires.

No injuries were reported, and the cause of all three fires is under investigation.

Man allegedly threatens 4 with spear

A 24-year-old man allegedly threatened his neighbors with a spear during an argument Sunday night in Waianae, police said.

The man was arrested for investigation of four counts of first-degree terroristic threatening, police said.

Just before 10:30 p.m. he allegedly threatened four men, ages 49, 47, 44 and 38, police said.

NEIGHBOR ISLANDS

Las Vegas woman dies in Kauai crash

A two-car crash in Puhi left a woman from Las Vegas dead yesterday and injured an 80-year-old man, Kauai officials said.

A car driven by the woman was headed east on Kaumualii Highway when it crossed the center line just west of the Anonui Road intersection and crashed into a westbound vehicle around 9:45 a.m., authorities said, citing a preliminary report.

The 22-year-old woman died at the scene. The other driver, a Koloa man, suffered non-life-threatening injuries.

Power failure affects most of Big Island

Hawaii Electric Light Co. is continuing to investigate the cause of a power outage Saturday night that affected nearly 80 percent of the utility’s customers on the Big Island.

Generators at three power plants tripped off-line, triggering the power failure, which shut off electricity to 63,000 of 79,800 customers, according to HELCO.

A spokesman for the utility said generators at Hamakua Energy Partners in Honokaa, HELCO’s Keahole plant and the HRD wind farm in Hawi unexpectedly went off-line at about 8:37 p.m.

The sudden loss of generation led to the automatic shutoff of electricity to various locations, the spokesman said.

Additional generators were started, and power was restored to all customers after the Hamakua Energy Partners and Keahole power plant returned to service at 9:37 p.m.