HONOLULU (KHON2) — Honolulu police confirmed an emergency access gate remained closed during a Nanakuli brushfire on July 8. Officials say extra access wasn’t needed, but residents disagree and want control of the gate.
Honolulu firefighters had the fire in Nanakuli contained to the mountains. But that doesn’t mean the residents who live nearby weren’t worried about getting out quickly if they needed to.
The problem was the gate to the emergency access route on Paakea road was locked.
“Good news is fire was put out, everybody’s safe but we’d like to have some kind of access to that road in the future,” said Doug Jensen, Honolulu resident.
Jensen was visiting his girlfriend in the area on the day of the fire. He says he called 911 and got bounced around from the fire department, to the Navy, to the police department with no luck on getting the gate unlocked or even finding out who’s responsible.
“Meanwhile, there’s a wildfire we’re trying to just open the place up,” Jensen said. “There’s at least 10, 20 people out there, some old people, that are concerned we wanna be able to get out if things gets worse.”
“Close every time that cause they never give us key,” said Jojo Erece, Nanakuli resident. “Yeah. Something happen, get traffic over here, still close the gate.”
Officials at the city’s Department of Emergency Management said the only person who has the power to determine whether or not to open this gate is the incident commander — whoever’s in charge of all the emergency personnel at that specific incident at that time.
If somebody called 911 requesting the gate to be opened, it wouldn’t happen.
“It does need to be opened sooner than they’re doing it yes,” said Elsie Gouveia, Nanakuli resident. “Yeah, if there’s an evacuation, emergency situation, it’s not gonna get opened in time.”
“I understand the frustration, but that’s exactly why we on the state side have taken that initiative to take it out of the county’s hands and have us step in because I don’t want anyone having to figure out who needs to do what,” said Rep. Darius Kila. “I want that road to be opened 24/7. And not just under these emergency circumstances.”
The road is scheduled to be open 24/7 this fall. The state is working to buy the land where the road sits. Once that’s complete, construction will start to make the road safe for daily driving.
Until then, residents hope for the best.
“It’s just like sending an email,” Jensen said. “I mean we’re back here again. If the fire’s tomorrow and we know it’s gonna be open in six months, that doesn’t help anybody so, we need, I guess we need a plan.”