Firefighters from Maui and Lanai on Wednesday continued to deal with flare-ups and hot spots in a 1,000-acre area blackened by a massive brush fire on Lanai that forced an evacuation for the Manele Bay Resort on Tuesday afternoon.
Maui County Spokeswoman Mahina Martin said windy conditions were still hampering the firefighters Wednesday afternoon. At least one flare-up was reported early Wednesday with additional reports later in the afternoon of flames breaking out in the burn area.
There were no reports of injuries or damages to structures, Martin said. She said there was no change in the estimate that the fire burned about 1,000 acres. Two helicopters continued to provide water drops on remote areas of gullies and gulches.
The cause of the fire remained under investigation Wednesday afternoon. It was reported at 12:13 p.m. in a section of the Palawai Basin between Lanai City and the Manele Bay Resort. It broke out at about the time the National Weather Service issued a wind advisory, saying an upper-level cold trough and a surface-level front were causing subsiding air to accelerate in leeward areas such as Lanai.
The fire was also associated with a power outage that hit Lanai City and Manele Bay at around 12:45 p.m. Tuesday.
A Maui Electric Co. Crew was able to restore power in a half hour but it was reported that the fire was burning through an area in which transmission lines were located and there was no way of telling whether the fire caused the outage or the outage may have something to do with the fire. On Wednesday afternoon, MECO Spokeswoman Kau'i Awai-Dickson said the cause of the outage was still under investigation and the cause was undetermined.
On Wednesday morning, Battalion Chief Frank Tam said the fire was "behaving."
He said the winds were still high at 25 to 30 miles per hour but Lanai received a little rain overnight.
"It hasn't grown too much more," he said.
Trade winds continued to blow at 20 to 29 mph overnight Tuesday, and picked up to 30 to a high of 38 mph Wednesday morning, hampering the use of helicopters for water drops and forcing fire crews to hike into difficult terrain to knock down hot spots. But the trades backed off Wednesday afternoon, easing to 10 mph at 5 p.m.
Tam said fire crews worked all night Tuesday into Wednesday morning along Manele Bay Road to keep the fire contained.
When the fire broke out, the winds pushed the flames across the Manele Bay Road, cutting off the access route between Lanai City and the Manele Bay Resort. The winds blowing up to 51 mph Tuesday pushed the blaze down the south slopes and into gulches around the resort.
When smoke from the blaze blanketed the Four Seasons Resort at Manele Bay and surrounding homes, fire officials ordered residents, guests and workers to evacuate to the Manele Beach Park and Manele Harbor on Tuesday. But the evacuation was lifted after the wind shifted and firefighters were able to stem the spread of the flames.
* Melissa Tanji can be reached at mtanji@mauinews.com.
