Victim of fatal accident was high-schooler

The Honolulu Medical Examiner’s Office identified the 17-year-old boy who died on a Labor Day outing with friends at Kapena Falls as Leighton Mow of Honolulu.

Mow was a senior at Moanalua High, said school Principal Robin Martin.

Campus counselors were available Tuesday for students. Mow had older siblings who graduated from the school, Martin said.

Mow was with a group of friends at Kapena Falls, off the Pali Highway in Nuuanu, on Monday morning when they said they couldn’t locate him. The Honolulu Fire Department was called at 2:15 p.m., and divers found the teen’s body at the bottom of the pond at about 3 p.m.

Witnesses said they didn’t know whether Mow slipped, fell, or jumped into the water.

An autopsy will be conducted, the Medical Examiner’s Office said.

Fire crews shield communication towers

Firefighters are protecting a line of communication towers from a brush fire that continues to burn in Makakilo and threatens two cabins and the Honouliuli Forest Preserve.

They include telephone, cellular, radio, TV, cable, Federal Aviation Administration and Navy communication lines, said Capt. David Jenkins, Honolulu Fire Department spokesman.

The Makakilo blaze flared up over the holiday weekend. Ten fire companies, 26 personnel and a dozen Department of Land and Natural Resources’ Division of Forestry and Wildlife personnel continued to battle the brush fire Tuesday.

The Fire Department’s main strategy is to re-establish a road used as a firebreak to allow state forestry trucks and smaller HFD trucks to hold a line in protecting the towers, Jenkins said.

Fire personnel also "pretreated foliage with a Class A foam designed to absorb heat and assist with extinguishment," he said. "It keeps the fire from getting closer."

Jenkins said conservative estimates suggests at least 1,025 acres have burned. The head of the fire is near the 2,000-foot elevation on the Kunia side of the Waianae Mountains.

Firefighters also used the foam in the area of a privately owned cabin at the 2,200-foot level on Palehua Road, which was also being used as an HFD command post, and another cabin.

The fire started Aug. 22 and is moving slowly in a northern direction about a quarter-mile from the Honouliuli Preserve.

Woman killed in driveway accident is ID’d

A 79-year-old Aiea woman who died last week after an accident in a private driveway has been identified by the city Medical Examiner’s Office as Aiko Sekiguchi.

The accident occurred Aug. 28 when Sekiguchi opened an iron gate at Kahapili and Kaonohi streets in Aiea.

The 74-year-old driver, who had arrived to pick up Sekiguchi, accidentally accelerated and struck the gate with a 2004 Toyota Camry, police said. Sekiguchi was thrown to the pavement by the force of the gate striking her.

The driver then swerved to the right, and the car continued over a retaining wall, crashing into a neighboring house and winding up partially in a bedroom, police said.

Sekiguchi was taken in critical condition with head and internal injuries to the Queen’s Medical Center, where she later died, police said. The driver was not injured.

The accident marked the fifth non-traffic death this year, compared with four at the same time a year ago.

Puna man punched, threatened in burglary

A 66-year-old Puna man reportedly woke up in his bedroom Sunday morning to find two unidentified men who then punched and threatened him with a knife, Hawaii County police said.

Police responded to a 3 a.m. report that a house on the 15-1700 block of 25th Avenue in the Hawaiian Paradise Park subdivision had been burglarized. The victim reported that numerous items were missing from the house, including guitars and electronic equipment. Estimated value of the stolen goods is $2,495.

One of the suspects wore a mask, police were told.