MOUNTAIN VIEW — A house burned down Wednesday on the 11-2900 block of Pikake Street in Fern Acres subdivision — the same block and just a few lots away from the scene of a fire that destroyed another dwelling the previous day.
“Right now, it’s still currently under investigation,” Clinton Baybayan, a battalion chief in the Hawaii Fire Department’s Fire Prevention Bureau, said Thursday when asked if officials believe arson is the cause of the fires. He then directed the Tribune-Herald to the duty battalion chief for East Hawaii at the Central Fire Station in Hilo.
Battalion Chief Matthias Kusch said firefighters have “no evidence right now that I’m aware of that points to” arson.
“I think human beings would put things together and see a short-term pattern, but I don’t have any evidence to support it,” Kusch said.
Written fire department statements list the cause of Tuesday’s fire as “under investigation” and Wednesday’s fire as “undetermined.”
Seven companies responded to Wednesday’s alarm at 5:35 p.m.
The first unit arriving on scene at 5:44 p.m. found the 600-square-foot single-story wooden structure “fully involved (with) roof collapse.”
“For a house to collapse, it is so burned at that point. It’s pretty amazing,” Kusch said. “A house will stand after substantial burning, so when it collapses, it has really decomposed all of the structural members so that it just falls down under it’s own weight. At that point, it’s very difficult.
“How are you going to make a determination (of the cause) out of a jumbled pile of twisted metal and charred wood?”
The statement said firefighters were concerned about the fire spreading to nearby brush in the highly-forested upper Puna subdivision.
The fire was determined to be under control at 6:10 p.m. and extinguished at 7:17 p.m.
The fire department listed the owner and occupant of the property where Wednesday’s fire occurred as “unknown” and the damage estimate as “undetermined.”
Eight HFD firefighters and three volunteer firefighters battled Wednesday’s blaze.
There were two homes destroyed by fires Tuesday in upper Puna. The other was on Kolea Street in Eden Roc subdivision. In both cases, as in Wednesday’s fire, firefighters found the homes totally involved and the roofs collapsed.
Tuesday night’s Pikake Street fire was the second house fire on the same property within a two-week period, fire officials said. A dwelling closer to the street than the one destroyed Tuesday suffered fire damage that was visible Thursday from the street.
“The fire we went to on Tuesday, it was like an accessory dwelling, or an illegal dwelling, I’m not really sure,” Kusch said.
Capt. John Briski, Hawaii Police Department’s Puna district commander, called the fires “definitely concerning,” and said police are investigating.
“We’re working with the fire department to determine the causes and looking for any information for anyone out there in the community that have information on the fires,” Briski said.
Anyone with information on any of the fires is asked to call the police non-emergency line at 935-3311 or Crime Stoppers at 961-8300.
Email John Burnett at jburnett@hawaiitribune-herald.com.