A Tuesday morning grease fire at Ling’s Chop Suey House in the Puainako Town Center in Hilo disrupted traffic, caused shoppers to squint and attracted rubberneckers, but there were no injuries.
The fire’s location constrained one of the center’s oft-used back exits. At the same time, multiple emergency response vehicles were positioned in front of Ling’s and along the parking lot abutting Kanoelehua Avenue, making negotiation of parking spots a little trickier than normal.
The fire was extinguished quickly but caused significant damage, with the Hawaii Fire Department estimating a $120,000 loss. The building’s automated fire-suppression system activated in the kitchen area, helping firefighters put out the flames.
Spotlight Maintenance worker Skylan Hay discovered smoke when he arrived at the restaurant and called 911. He also used an automated dialing system to alert nearby businesses. Nine department vehicles responded, including four engines.
HFD estimates the coordinated response prevented $320,000 in property destruction.
Also on-scene were Hawaii Police Department officers.
“It’s a big shopping center, so they don’t know what they’re getting into,” Hay said. “So they have to show up with everything. Yeah, their response time was good.”
Pulelehuanani High, also with Spotlight, said she got a call from Hay when he saw smoke, asking her to assist.
“At first, all we saw was just smoke and then, as it grew, we saw flames from the front window,” High said. A passer-by “was very concerned because we didn’t know where the owner was,” she said.
The passer-by broke out a front-door window in case the owner needed to be rescued, High said. But the owner was found at a nearby business a short time later.
Tim Beaver, a food equipment seller with Aloha Food Service, said he had just reached a nearby stoplight after visiting the landfill.
He glanced over “and I saw a big plume of, like, gray smoke.”
“It looked like an explosion. So, I came down Kanoelehua and when I got here there was still blue smoke coming out of the fan,” he said. Firefighters had already arrived and were actively fighting the fire.
Once the fire was extinguished, firefighters checked the vent.
“First, they shot it with an infrared to see if there was any heat there,” Beaver said. “There’s an inspection plate that’s in there and they didn’t want to open it up if there was fire in there.”
Ling’s was closed Tuesday. A restaurant representative was not available as of press time to discuss when the business will reopen.
Email Jeff Hansel at jhansel@hawaiitribune-herald.com.
