The cause of the deadly Marco Polo fire is officially “undetermined,” the Honolulu Fire Department announced Monday at a news conference with Mayor Kirk Caldwell.
“In the end we do not know what caused the fire,” said Caldwell, who called it the largest structure fire in Honolulu history.
Evidence, including some conflicting witness statements, collected during the three-month investigation was outlined in an 85-page HFD report that relates how an occupant of Unit 2602, where the Marco Polo fire originated, awoke the afternoon of July 14 on the living room floor to find smoke in the unit.
Jeffrey Rockett, a man who had previously been homeless and had moved in a week before the July 14 fire with best friend Thomas Miller and Miller’s fiancee, Laura Gearhart, awoke at 2:15 p.m. to the sound of what he thought was an alarm clock to find “light ambient smoke.”
“Mr. Rockett related that there was ‘no real smoke or nothing, just ambient smoke,’” the report said, noting his attorney’s presence during the interview. “When Mr. Rockett got to the stove, the fire instantly appeared.”
He described a whooshing sound as a plume of smoke shot up from the floor to the ceiling in the middle of the room, and “instantly there was fire on.”
However, officials said the fire originated in the living room, not the kitchen.
The report also shows the building elevators did not work properly despite having elevator technicians on the scene, forcing firefighters to climb the 30-plus stories with 80-pound packs.
The results of the probe were announced at a joint news conference at the McCully-Moiliili fire station, just a few blocks from the Marco Polo, where the seven-alarm fire broke out July 14. Damage has been estimated at more than $100 million.
Fire Chief Manuel Neves said the department has conducted an accurate and thorough investigation into the fire, which killed four, including a woman who later died from complications resulting from the fire. He said other parties will continue their investigations, but the Fire Department has ended its own.
“No one element led us to the conclusion,” he said. Included in the investigation were observed fire damage, fire patterns, more than 3,500 photos taken and hundreds of witness statements.
HFD was unable to rule out such possible accidental causes as smoking, a compressed gas cylinder and a lighter wand near the fire origin, and electrical failure or malfunction of an air-conditioning unit, a desktop computer, a portable computer and duplex 110-volt receptacles.
The circuit breaker panel did not appear to match the typical two-bedroom electrical configuration noted in the building plans, the report said.
Neves said the fire was driven by strong wind.
Rockett, prior to living with Miller and Gearhart, had been living in Miller’s Pathfinder SUV. He had been working on Miller’s Hyundai in the garage the night before the fire until security asked him at 1 a.m. to stop. He then went to McDonald’s for breakfast and returned at 2 a.m.
He met Miller in the garage where they both smoked cigarettes, he told the investigator. They both went upstairs at 2:30 a.m., and he fell asleep on the floor between the coffee table and the couch.
When the fire started at 2:17 p.m. July 14, Rockett said he yelled for Miller and Gearhart but heard nothing.
He went to Miller’s bedroom and found Gearhart halfway sitting up in bed and told her, “We gotta go, this place is on fire.”
The two crawled to the front door, with Gearhart holding his foot.
He “did not think to close the front door,” and the louvered door was open, the report said.
Rockett said he saw fire near the middle of the living room. “The smoke went up, hit the ceiling, then the smoke pushed into the kitchen,” the report said.
The two got out through the Diamond Head stairwell. Rockett said he then went to the garage to look for Miller, who showed up a few minutes later.
Fire investigator Jeff Booker said the evidence included lighter fluid cylinders and a 9-inch MAPP gas cylinder used by plumbers and hobbyists. Rockett told an investigator that the torch (referring to a MAPP gas cylinder with a torch tip connected) was used for Gearhart’s jewelry-making and Miller’s hobbies, including vehicle repairs.
Rockett said he was charging a cellphone that was plugged into an extension cord.
Miller said he was up late peeling tint off his truck in the parking garage, and went to bed between 2:30 and 3 a.m. He woke up at about noon or 1 p.m. and went out to smoke a cigarette by his truck because Gearhart did not allow smoking in the apartment. He said he went to get gas and also got something to eat for Gearhart and Miller.
He felt “something was wrong,” so he returned home to find the building on fire.
Miller said he sometimes got shocked using the garbage disposal, and a receptacle near the front door had a broken ground plug stuck inside. He said they bought a new 15,000 BTU/220-volt air conditioner and installed it the day before, July 13.
He related that they had in the living room a coffee table, a lighter for candles, and two butane lighter fluid containers, one full, the other nearly full.
The owners of Unit 2602, Dale and Jere Gearhart, parents of Laura Gearhart, said she lived there with her fiance, Thomas Miller, whom her father described as quiet.
Marco Polo security guard Leonard Rosa, who was on his third day on the job, said other guards told him that they had numerous problems with the occupants of Unit 2602, describing Miller and his friends as rowdy and unruly, and that they often worked on cars in their parking stall.
The Fire Department had ruled out the fire being intentionally set or caused by cooking, a meth lab or ignitable liquids.
Marco Polo Fire Investigation by Honolulu Star-Advertiser on Scribd
