Kilauea lava flow threatening town in Hawaii

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http://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/story/2701 ... pahoa-town
Hawai'i County Civil Defense officials say the Puna lava flow advanced approximately 250 yards since Saturday morning and has passed through the Pahoa cemetery grounds as it continues downslope in a northeast direction.

Usually the lava flows to the south towards the sea but since 2013 they have decided to start on the north side of the volcano instead. This flow began on June 27th. Because of the topography it's been forced to go northeast parallel to the coast towards Pahoa. Along the way it has sometimes found numerous cracks and gullies in the ground through which to insulate and pick up speed and other times it has temporarily stopped.

I'm wondering if they couldn't stop it or alter its course by spraying it with a fire hose.

Even with enormous quantities of water, wouldn't it just cool a thin outside layer and leave the remaining lava still flowing?

RUN!! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !

Damnit! Why is everything I write double posting all of a sudden?

Last edited by Kraichgauer on 27 Oct 2014, 10:27 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Come to think of it, it might be a bit like blowing dry air on an advancing flash flood.

An older lady from the island told me this interesting story.An old woman had went door to door begging and was turned away from some homes,in others she was given food.Later the volcano sent a lava flow into that area,the homes where the old woman received food were left untouched by the lava flow.The locals believed the old woman was Pele.The lady that told me this took it very seriously.

Kilauea is a baby. Google Bardarbunga.

A photo of the Kilauea flow in someone's garden:
[img][495:343]http://i.snag.gy/x4ePW.jpg[/img]


Bárðarbunga is awesome. This is the lava field (27th October):

Here's a link to a timelapse video from the webcams. Bárðarbunga time lapse 26th-27th October
And some information on Bárðarbunga (not all up to date): Bárðarbunga links

i wonder how close (or far) one would have to be to feel unbearably hot.

i imagine by the time you stumble close enough to it to observe its awesomeness you are already dead.

It depends on the lava type, and methane gas explosions can occur at the edges of flows moving over vegetation, but you can get quite close:
[img][400:300]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e3/Hawaii_Resident_Philip_Maise.jpg[/img]
[img][400:250]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e0/Kalapana_house_destroyed_by_lava.jpg[/img]

Halting lava flow advance by spraying water on it has been done with success, so far as I can tell, only once. During the 1973 eruption of Eldfell volcano on the Heimaey Island, Iceland, a massive campaign of water cooling to stem the flow of lava was undertaken in order to save a fishing harbour (Vestmannaeyjar) from being cutoff by lava from the sea.

The text that I have underlined above, takes you to an interesting USGS open file report which gives an account of the operation. As you can tell from reading, the operation was quite massive and required a ton of manpower, infrastructure, foresight and (implicitly) money.

One key contributor to the success of the Eldfell flow stoppage and how doing a similar operation to the June 27 flow may not save Pahoa: unlike Eldfell which ceased erupting 6 months after it started in January, Kilauea continues to erupt -- having been in continuous eruption since 1983. While spraying water might delay the advance of the June 27 flow, it likely will not be enough to save the hamlet.

~CGKings317

Considering how long it's been erupting, the surrounding area being more populated, and the extremely limited success with man stopping lava it's best to let Pele do her thing than risk even more homes being destroyed.

It's destroyed it's first home today, the main flow front stalled on Halloween and a series of breakouts have been occurring on the north side of it since then.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bb7yWtC-ry8[/youtube]

Wouldn't it be cheaper to try to move or rebuild the homes?

the topic title is interesting to me on this level: it presumes that the town in hawaii is in some sense pre-ordinate to the lava flow in that it is seen as more important (and established in the human psyche) than the lava flow, and therefore the lava flow is the villain that snuffs out the town.

but on the other hand, it could be seen that the town is impeding the natural flow of the lava, and therefore the town deserves to be leveled for it's obstinance in the face of nature.