Three residents killed in Honolulu apartment fire
The 36-floor building near the tourist mecca of Waikiki was built in 1971, before sprinklers were mandatory in high-rises.
A Hawaiian HONOLULU — Airlines in-flight manager called his brother as smoke filled his 26th-floor apartment in Honolulu before he and his mother lost their lives in the blaze, the man’s brother said.
Phil Reller told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser that police confirmed two of the three victims killed in the blaze Friday were his mother and brother.
Reller said he received a call from his brother, Britt Reller, 54, saying he had been taking a shower when he smelled the smoke. He rushed out but was unable to get to their 85-year-old mother, Melba Jeannine Dilley. He crawled under a bed and wasn’t heard from again, his brother said.
The fire broke out in a unit on the 26th floor, where all three of the dead were found, Fire Chief Manuel Neves said.
The building known as the Marco Polo residences is not required to have fire sprinklers, which would have confined the blaze to the unit where it started, Neves said. The 36-floor building near the tourist mecca of Waikiki was built in 1971, before sprinklers were mandatory in high-rises. It has over 500 units.
Late into the night as embers smoldered, firefighters were searching the damaged areas to make sure no additional people perished.
Karen Hastings was in her 31st floor Honolulu apartment when she smelled smoke. She ran out to her balcony, looked down, and saw flames five floors below her.
“The fire just blew up and went flying right out the windows,” said Hastings, 71. “And that was like a horror movie. Except it wasn’t a horror movie, it was for real.”
Hastings said the fearsome flames drove her and a neighbor to flee down stairways for 14 floors until they found a safe stairwell to get some air.
Cory La Roe, who is from Florida and stationed in Hawaii with the Air Force, works night shifts and was asleep when sirens woke him at about 2:15 p.m.
“First thing, I was kind of disoriented and confused about what was going on, so I looked out my window and saw people running away from the building, looking back toward it.”
La Roe said he didn’t hear any announcements, and there were no flashing fire alarm lights in the building. But “after I saw people running out and went out to the hallway, I knew it was a fire alarm,” he said.
He said he had not realized that the building didn’t have a sprinkler system.
“That’s one thing that I wasn’t aware of prior to moving in,” La Roe said. “It was definitely shocking for me to know that there weren’t any sprinklers installed in the building.”
Honolulu Mayor Kirk Caldwell said the city needs to look at passing a law requiring older buildings be retrofitted with sprinklers.