Firefighters battling a brush fire in Nanakuli found human skeletal remains yesterday.

Fire Capt. Gary Lum said the human remains were not ancient, but had been there awhile.

He said the remains were found after a brush fire burned the area yesterday afternoon, about a mile mauka of the ocean and a few hundred yards on the Nanakuli side of Lualualei Naval Road.

Lum said no wallet or other forms of identification were found near the body.

The Honolulu Police Department is conducting an investigation, he said.

The brush fire burned a hillside but never came close to threatening homes and was contained at 5 p.m. yesterday, he said.

Some 11 Honolulu fire companies, five water tanker trucks and five federal firetrucks responded to the initial blaze at 9:36 a.m. as the fire spread into the valley along Lualualei Naval Road.

Two Honolulu Fire Department helicopters carrying buckets of water from the ocean helped in fighting the blaze.