As we left the Dole Plantation this afternoon, we saw this column of smoke rising from behind the hill…. It looked ominous even from this distance (3-4 miles)….

As we got closer, it looked worse….

And worse….

Then even worse!

And, even in this last picture, we are not even in visual range of the fire, just the smoke!

After this picture, Marianne switched over to the camcorder so the flames and such are all on DVD…. It was a pretty big fire, and as of 7pm tonight when we went down to Haleiwa, which is about 2 miles from the fire flashpoint, it was still burning, but the smoke was much less intense, more of a haze to the sky. We stopped at Pizza Hut for dinner, and their phones were out because of a power outage caused buy the fire. The phone central office was out of power or damaged, I guess. We found out that our cell phones (both) were not working as well, so it must have taken out the power to the cell tower(s) as well…..

The fire is about 10 miles west of us, and burning in a westerly direction thanks to a nice strong easterly breeze all day….