An unbelievable amount of lava is erupting from fissures below Leilani Estates on the Big Island of Hawaii! More than twenty cracks are issuing red hot liquid rock, which is coursing downhill, destroying homes, cars, roads... and anything else in her path.

The fissures have now joined forming a "curtain of fire" in a spectacular display. Numerous fingers of lava have stretched toward the sea overnight, and this morning were only about a mile from the water. Over forty homes have been destroyed since the eruption began fifteen days ago. Although it began in Leilani and burned several homes there, she soon established her vents below the subdivision with towering fountains, spatter cones feeding gigantic lava flows.

So far, no deaths have been reported. First responders have evacuated several residents who had become trapped by the fast moving flows. Pohoiki Road has been covered with lava, but Highways 132 and 137 are still open as of this writing. If she continues at the same rate we saw this morning, she may cross the "Red Road," and make the ocean by tonight or tomorrow. No lava is currently erupting in the Leilani Estates subdivision. Mahalo to the kind folks at Paradise Helicopters... they offer the finest charters in the islands!