Fire officials from Cowlitz 2 Fire & Rescue in Kelso, Washington are now on Hawaii's Big Island to assist with incident management of the Kilauea volcano eruption emergency.
Fire Chief Dave LaFave and Battalion Chief Joe Tone arrived in Hawaii Sunday afternoon. They've already witnessed eruptive events up close.
"It started as a crack in the road," said Tone, speaking about a fissure that opened up in the Leilani Estates neighborhood. "The steam and the sulfur dioxide was coming out of the crack in the road and within a half hour, the road gave way, the ground gave way, and lava was shooting up."
Cowlitz 2 Fire & Rescue has a partnership with Hawaii firefighters. Both agencies have assisted and trained with each other in the past. But this kind of an incident is a new one for Tone.
"I get an opportunity to deal with emergencies on a daily basis in my regular job," said Tone. "There are fires that are 100,000 acres and above, but something like this, the power to the human mind is unreal."