Quick action from firefighters helped limit damage at a single-story, two-bedroom house on Winant Street in the Waiakamilo section of Kalihi mid-Tuesday afternoon.
The fire appeared to have started in an outdoor “makeshift cooking area” just behind the house, and flames spread into the kitchen and back bedroom of the home, said Capt. Carlton Yamada, spokesman for the Honolulu Fire Department. An investigator gave a preliminary damage estimate of $50,000. Yamada said about 10 percent of the structure was damaged.
Two teenage boys who were in the house when the fire began escaped without injury as did the family dog, but the American Red Cross Hawaii Chapter will have to find alternate temporary housing plans for the boys and their parents.
Firefighters arrived on the scene at about 2:27 p.m. and declared the fire under control about 10 minutes later, Yamada said.
An hour later Ralph and Ryan Cenence, ages 18 and 14, sat on the curb near their home still stunned. Flora Cenence, the boys’ mother, said she and husband Simon were not home when the fire began at the house the family has rented for more than 10 years.
The cooking area outside where the fire may have originated contained a propane tank and woks, Yamada said.
Ralph Cenence, who attends Honolulu Community College, said he was in the bedroom when he ran outside after smelling something burning. Ryan Cenence, an incoming Farrington High School freshman, was also in the house.
A small house behind the Cenences’ home sustained cracked windows. Ralph Cenence said no one lives there.
The boys said they had mixed emotions in the aftermath of the fire. On the one hand, they got out physically unscathed. But not yet having been allowed back into the house, Ralph Cenence said, he’s worried about the condition of several vital electronics left there.
