Robert Widdecombe was home at Ocean View Estates in Naalehu on the Big Island when he saw smoke rising from a brush fire about four blocks away yesterday afternoon.

"The fire was spreading rapidly," said Widdecombe, a general contractor. "It was so thick with smoke I couldn’t see the houses. … A runaway fire is so scary."

He said he ran up the street to warn residents in their houses and helped to fight the fire.

People used their garden hoses and gathered water in buckets from residential water tanks, he said.

An estimated 80 acres at Ocean View Estates were burned, forcing the evacuation of 30 homes by 50 residents and burning two houses, authorities said.

There were no reported injuries, and the destroyed structures were believed to be unoccupied, said Barney Sheffield, disaster coordinator for the Red Cross in Hawaii County.

Civil Defense Administrator Quince Mento said firefighters from some nearby fire stations, along with a couple of helicopters making water drops, fought the blaze.

Firefighters received the initial alarm at 3:05 p.m.

Winds were 10 to 15 mph, fire officials said, but according to Sheffield, the gusts were up to about 25 mph.

The wind died in the late afternoon, slowing its spread and eventually leading to its containment, Sheffield said.

Sheffield said the fire occurred in about a two-block area in the vicinity of Princess Kaiulani and King Kamehameha boulevards.

Shortly before 8 last night, residents were close to returning to their homes, Sheffield said.