The origin of a fire that knocked out 911 emergency service and caused other communications problems Sunday was unknown Monday, but a Hawaiian Telcom spokesman said all service was restored by 3:15 a.m. Monday.
The last affected area was a small portion of Kihei.
A fire on a utility pole near Liloa Drive and Waipuilani Road was reported at 2:42 p.m., according to police Lt. Wayne Ibarra and fire Capt. Paul Haake.
Firefighters responded quickly, according to Scott Simon of Hawaiian Telcom, but the fiber-optic cable bundle had been damaged.
The outage affected 911 calls on Maui and Lanai, but not Molokai, and some off-island telephone calls and Internet service provided by Hawaiian Telcom. It also interrupted cellular phone service of some providers who use Telcom services to connect their cell towers, Simon said.
He did not know which cellphone services were affected.
Repair crews responded to the pole, and other workers rerouted service so that within 90 minutes 911 service was restored to most of Maui, with Hana and Lanai restored not long after. All 911 service was functioning by 9 p.m.
Ibarra said he hadn't been notified of any problems caused by the service interruption. Police and emergency responders were able to field calls for help because Hawaiian Telcom rerouted 911 calls to police stations in the area of the originating call. Ordinarily, 911 calls go to one center.
Ibarra said the fire began near high-voltage lines and the pole burned and snapped off at the top. Maui Electric spokeswoman Kau'i Awai-Dickson said MECO crews also responded to the fire, although electric service in the area was not affected.
The interruption of 911 calls started at 3:26 p.m.
Simon said Hawaiian Telcom apologizes to its customers for the inconvenience.
Haake said the fire remained under investigation. But the damage appeared to be primarily to the top 5 feet of the pole. He said that means it may be related to the high-voltage equipment and not the brush fire reported in the area, possibly as a result of the pole fire.
Jen Edwards of Kihei lives in front of the power line. She said she and her young family bought the house just two weeks ago, and then they had a waterline break and now this.
"This fire coming out the middle of nowhere, it was really strange, and we were saying, 'What is going on?' " Edwards said. "But the Fire Department was there in minutes. They were on it."
High winds Sunday brought down two utility poles in Olowalu shortly before noon, Awai-Dickson said. Service in Olowalu was interrupted to enable crews to access the area safely and make repairs. Power was restored at 4:32 PM.
Throughout the day MECO also responded to smaller outages resulting from debris in power lines in Piiholo, Olinda and Haiku.
