Seven and a half years before, the last Kilauea East Rift eruption flushed the summit crater’s magma toilet empty, and blew the downhill plumbing open at Leilani Estates. Weeks of resulting lava flows obliterated the eastern part of that settlement, and traveled east and southeast to the sea. This was the westernmost arm of those flows, a river of a’a lava that mowed down and torched the forest on its way into the Pacific, rendering an arboreal boneyard. Yet, somehow the top of the flow cooled off fast enough not to burn the logs completely through to cinders, or even charcoal. In its wake, new life already sprouts from pockets of soil and moisture catchment, while what’s left of the trees litters the sharp and rugged basalt, as a testament to the power of the Big Island Volcanic Paving Service.
4 SE Leilani Estates HI (13 Sep 25) Looking NW
19.4427, -154.8589