Another Waikiki fire chars surfboard racks

Honolulu police have opened a first-degree arson investigation into an early morning surfboard rack fire that broke out in Waikiki.

This was the second surfboard rack fire in Waikiki in three weeks.

The blaze broke out before 3:50 a.m. Thursday at the surfboard and paddleboard storage site operated by Nalu Storage. The site is in an alleyway known as Duke’s Lane, between the Royal Hawaiian Shopping Center and the Outrigger Waikiki Beach Resort.

Police said there are no arrests at this time.

Honolulu firefighters initially responded to a magazine rack fire near The Cheesecake Factory on Kalakaua Avenue. While crews extinguished the first fire, police reported a separate fire at the surfboard lockers.

Firefighters brought the fire under control just after 4:10 a.m. and extinguished it within five minutes.

The cause of the fire is under investigation. The number of boards destroyed in the blaze and a damage estimate were not immediately available.

At sunrise, passersby stopped and saw black ashes on the ground within a section of Nalu Storage where surfboards and paddleboards once stood. Flames also melted or burned parts of other boards.

Nalu Storage owner Maurie Feldberg only learned of the fire once he checked messages on his phone Thursday afternoon upon his arrival in Honolulu following a long flight. “I didn’t know what was happening,” he said during a phone interview with the Honolulu Star- Advertiser.

Shocked and angry, Feldberg said, “I can’t stand these (expletive) who are going around burning Waikiki. “This is (expletive) ridiculous.”

“I’m just beside myself,” he said, exasperated.

Moana Huddy, 65, who lives more than a mile away from the storage area, recalled watching a television news segment on the fire when he saw a section of the surfboard rack that appeared to be the area where he stored his 10-foot paddleboard.

Huddy and his wife, Kari, headed to the site, where they confirmed his paddleboard was among those destroyed in the blaze.

He paid $35 a month under a $420 annual payment plan to store his $500 paddleboard there. “It was my favorite, too,” Huddy said of the board.

“Fortunately, we have other boards, but it’s just … it’s sad. For some people that’s the only board they have,” Huddy said.

Lindsey Woolley of Manoa, whose 8-foot surfboard stored at Nalu Storage was spared by the blaze, empathized with those whose boards were charred in the fire. “It’s so sad,” she said.

Three weeks ago prosecutors charged Glenn A. Helton, 48, with first-degree arson in connection with an Oct. 17 fire at the surfboard racks near the Waikiki police substation a short distance away from Nalu Storage.

Damage was estimated at $650,000, including $100,000 to the surfboard lockers, $300,000 to surfboards and $250,000 to structures.

Helton remains in custody at the Oahu Community Correctional Center in lieu of $70,000 bail.

In February 2020 another fire destroyed about 525 surfboards at the same site as last month’s fire. Investigators had determined it also was intentionally set. No arrests have been made in the case.

The Star-Advertiser asked the Police Department whether the surfboard rack fires are related. Honolulu police spokeswoman Michelle Yu did not say whether they are related, and indicated in an email that the investigation is ongoing.