Fire and Brimstone

When the world’s largest active volcano erupted for the first time in nine years, it did so with spectacular fury. Fountains of fiery lava shot 400 ft. into the air from the 1½-mile-wide crater at the summit of Mauna Loa (13,677 ft.). The lava spilled down blackened mountain slopes in thick rivers of gleaming marigold fire, looking demonically magical, an apprentice sorcerer’s wish for gold gone awry. At week’s end the menacing wall had oozed to within four miles of Hawaii’s second-largest city, Hilo, (pop. 35,000).

A second outbreak from a 6,000-ft.-wide fissure farther down the mountain kept stoking the 2,000° F flow. For a while, one stream crept toward the isolated, minimum-security Kulani prison camp. For almost three hours, 20 guards and 75 prisoners were without electricity after power was cut off to be rerouted to other areas affected by the lava flow. Some Hilo residents remained unworried and held “housewarming” parties; others looked up at the looming lava and decided to evacuate the area temporarily.

As Mauna Loa’s flow started to slow, its famous and recently active neighbor, Kilauea, 20 miles away, began a new eruption of its own: it is the first time the two volcanoes have spurted simultaneously since 1868. There were, in addition, apocalyptic rumblings on the mainland, where Washington State’s Mount St. Helens was once more sputtering smoke and ash.