Honolulu Fires

Most of the damage to private property on Oahu was caused by U.S. "ack-ack" (anti-aircraft artillery) which was set to explode five to ten seconds after detonation. But, there was some faulty ack-ack that didn't detonate in the air; it fell to the ground then exploded.

The fires that were caused by the ack-ack centered around the Kalihi, McCully and Iwilei areas. (If you go to an online map, you can focus on McCully and King Streets, on the Lunalilo School, and on Iwilei to give you an aerial perspective of how the shrapnel fell).

The fire department logs for that day record people calling about walls falling down (Most homes in Hawaii at the time were single-wall construction, built on stilts.) and roofs collapsing.

One man reported shrapnel shearing off a telephone pole, just feet above his head. A gas storage tank of Honolulu Gas Company in Iwilei was on fire. (See next post for newspaper article about the Iwilei fire.)

A significant fire broke out at King and McCully (The photo on the top right is of the King and McCully Streets intersection. It is mauka of the site of McCully Chop Suey.) Three houses burned at Hauoli and Agaroba Streets. Thirty-one people were homeless. Three civilians were killed. (One of the houses that burned belonged to a firefighter who was with his company at Hickam Field.)

The photo on the left is of the Goo home in Kalihi.

All HFD members were on continuous duty until the morning of Tuesday, December 9, 1941 when each man was on a schedule of four hours off and twelve hours on.

PHOTOS: McCully and King Streets intersection; Goo home in Kalili. (HWRD)