34 people safe after two-alarm house fire in Pearl City
CINDY ELLEN RUSSELL / CRUSSELL@STARADVERTISER.COM
Firefighters responded to a fire Saturday morning at 786 Puukala Street in Pearl City.
CINDY ELLEN RUSSELL / CRUSSELL@STARADVERTISER.COM
Firefighters responded to a fire Saturday morning at 786 Puukala Street in Pearl City.
Honolulu firefighters responded to a two-alarm fire Saturday morning in Pearl City.
Nine fire companies arrived at 9:13 a.m. at 786 Puu Kala Street to see a one story house with flames and smoke coming from front doors and windows of the house.
The fire was under control at 9:45 a.m. and extinguished at 9:53 a.m.
All 15 adults and 19 children escaped without injury, fire officials said.
The cause of the fire is under investigation.
A damage estimate has not yet been determined.
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18 responses to “34 people safe after two-alarm house fire in Pearl City”
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15 adults and 19 children in ONE house? You think there might be a few code violations going on?
Records say it is a 5 bedroom 2 bath 1656 sq ft house. Must be a line in the morning for 19 people to share 2 bathrooms. Welcome to Honolulu normal.
Yup…Times are hard!
Decades ago, that’s how Filipino “sponsored” immigrants would live. Once they arrived in Honolulu, two or three families would live in multi-bedroom old houses in Kalihi Valley. Each adult worked fulltime plus a second job. When each family raised enough $$, they moved away and bought their own homes, “always fee simple”(an old phrase). Nowadays, 34 people live in a 5 bedroom house and no one’s saving to buy their own home. It’s all about surviving the high cost of living in Hawaii, the “village mentality” and mismanaged family finances (notice that I never mentioned the word “budget”). Wow! Can you imagine if everyone in that big household elected one “chief”. That person would determine how every aspect of the household was run. Each family adult would be required to work. All the paychecks went into the pot. Each family chose a member to represent them in the council. A budget was made, which would ensure that all the bills would be paid, and everyone in the home would be cared for. There would also be $$ set aside for each family, so they could buy their own home, send their kids to college or move away. Nah, my idea sounds like a form of governance. It’d never work.
what, you and I know this is not “Honolulu normal”. But what you said DOES sound dramatic and that’s what you wanted.
Yes, I shot that comment from the hip and missed the mark somewhat. Would be more accurate for me to say that such crowded housing is much more common in many Honolulu neighborhoods nowadays due to the ever skyrocketing cost of Honolulu housing.
And one myna bird in one Papaya tree.
what, you’re right about that. Last month, a young Polynesian couple rented the small house next door. Now there are seven people living there. Or maybe they’re just visiting. My wife will find out for sure.
All those people and nobody remembered to turn off the stove? Iron? In all seriousness, with 19 kids, I’ll put money on someone playing with matches or a lighter.
I’m glad the 34 people are safe. Perhaps it was a family Christmas party with all those folks there?
That’s a lot of toilet paper!
34 occupants in one house, daggone, what could possibly go wrong?
I’ll be checking out their blue trash bin for empty HI5 cans.
Who knows how the fire started? Stove left on? Kid playing with lighter/matches? Too many appliances plugged into the outlet/extension cord? Fire inspectors will determine the cause. My wife and I live in a 3 bdrm 2.5 bath 1500 sf home. Kids left the nest. I asked my wife to 1) downsize, 2)take in foster kids or 3)my SIL’s ungrateful nephew/college kid or 4)homeless relatives. She said 1)no; 2)no; 3)no; no. I tried, but happy wife, happy life. She does most of the cleaning, so I don’t complain.
If the fire inspector checks into it, my guess is the house had been chopped up into small “illegal” rentals. The sewage is probably not even tied in to the main line and running into someone else’s or right into the ground. Seems the insurance company, if there is one, should investigate, too. And where’s CPS for the kids living in this environment?
34 people in one house? At least they weren’t homeless on the streets but they now are too bad.
Because of this over capacity of occupants, we will have a new law that requires us to post a maximum amount of people in each home according to size, just like the restaurants have.
mike, there actually IS a law limiting the amount of unrelated people living in a home.