Police and fire investigators are looking into the cause of three brush fires that may have been intentionally set along the H-1 freeway in Kapolei on Sunday morning.
The brush fires were about a quarter-mile apart from each other, next to the town-bound lanes of the freeway between the Makakilo onramp and the North-South Road offramp. No homes or structures were threatened.
The cause was undetermined.
Honolulu Fire Department spokesman Kendall Ching said the fires, which burned 3 acres, were reported at 9:11 a.m. Sunday. Seventeen firefighters from six companies and three tankers brought the fires under control by 9:49 a.m.
Honolulu police shut two town-bound lanes of the freeway at 9:45 a.m. near the North-South Road offramp. The lanes were reopened at about 12:45 p.m.
On May 18 a Makakilo brush fire destroyed 80 acres adjacent to the H-1 freeway and threatened nearby homes and prompted voluntary evacuations.
Several weeks earlier, on May 2, fire crews put out a brush fire on the periphery of Waipahu Intermediate School. About 5 acres of brush were burned. No structures were damaged, no injuries were reported and no evacuations were necessary.
At a May 27 news conference, HFD Chief Manuel Neves said wildfire season is an annual problem that can affect any area, including recently Diamond Head, Central Oahu and Pearlridge.
This year brought a drier than usual winter, and as the dry season starts, fire, police and weather officials are cautioning residents about preventing destructive wildfires that are expensive to fight and deadly for Hawaii’s endangered species.
In the past five years, more than 9,000 acres on Oahu have burned in more than 2,000 fires; the Fire Department has used 50,000 firefighter hours to handle the blazes, Neves said.
