KAILUA-KONA — The Hawaii Fire Department is still closely monitoring a wildfire that laid waste to roughly 125 acres and a ranch shed Monday in Waimea.
Battalion Chief Darwin Okinaka said there was no active burning as of noon on Tuesday, but that small pockets of smoke were still intermittently appearing across the burn site.
Two on-duty personnel from Waimea and two members of recall personnel are stationed at the scene, ready to jump in and address any issue that may arise.
The cause of the fire is yet undetermined, and the investigation had made minimal progress as of early Tuesday afternoon.
The weather conditions on the island haven’t helped the situation either, and residents shouldn’t look for those conditions to improve markedly any time soon.
Maureen Ballard, meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Honolulu, said a front is situated over Maui County but is dissipating as it moves along — limiting its potential to generate rainfall. She added that there are likely trade winds to follow, but they will be drier trades, probably creating only a few lighter afternoon showers.
The National Weather Service has anticipated a dryer winter following the re-appearance of El Nino and the tropical storms it wrought in 2015. Ballard said the organization is also predicting fewer tropical cyclones this summer, which are the primary sources of rain in the dryer summer season.