Hawaii lava burns first home on its path of destruction

Hawaii lava burns first home on its path of destruction

The lava burned the first house in a stream of molten rock that has been making its way toward the village of Pahoa for weeks, civil defense officials said.

A slow-moving lava flow has incinerated a house on Hawaii’s Big Island. The flow, from an erupting volcano, burned the first house in a stream of molten rock that has been making its way toward the village of Pahoa for weeks, civil defense officials said.

The home had been evacuated awhile ago, and no injuries were reported from the event. The river of lava began seeping from the Kilauea Volcano in late June. According to the Hawaii County Civil Defense officials, no other dwellings are immediately threatened.

The home caught fire just before noon local time by a small stream of lava that separated from the main flow on Sunday, despite the leading edge coming to a near stop about 480 feet away from Pahoa Village Road, the main street through town, officials said.

Video posted online by civil defense showed a charcoal-covered, crackling sea of lava consuming the ground around the home as flames and thick smoke enveloped the single-story, wood-paneled home, leading to its collapse.

County civil defense chief Darryl Oliveira said in a statement that family members who had lived there stood by to “document and observe” their burning home from a safe distance.

Aside from the house, the only other structures destroyed in the area included a storage shed and a cattle-feeding shelter consumed by lava last month. A separate offshoot of lava just missed a house last month, coming within 100 feet of the building.

According to Volcano Live, Kilauea is one of the world’s most active volcanoes and has been in constant eruption since 1983.

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