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The latest lava fountaining episode of an erupting Hawaii volcano shot 400 metres high Tuesday, prompting temporary closures at a national park and part of an important highway because of falling volcanic fragments, including ash.
Kilauea, on Hawaii’s Big Island, has been dazzling residents and visitors for more than year with an on-and-off eruption that periodically sends fountains of lava soaring into the sky.
The fountaining that began Tuesday morning marked the eruption’s 43rd episode since it began in December 2024. A livestream showed two fountains of bright-red lava and smoke. It’s unclear how long the fountaining will last. Some episodes have lasted a few days and others a few hours.
Like other times, the molten rock was confined within Kilauea’s summit crater inside Hawaii Volcanoes National Park and hasn’t threatened homes or buildings.
One of the most volcanically active sites on the planet, Kilauea volcano erupted in lava fountains on Tuesday, reaching heights of 400 metres, the U.S. Geological Survey reported. Plumes of smoke from the eruption also reached 25,000 feet above sea level, according to the U.S. National Weather Service.
But the lava fountains were creating trouble for neighbouring communities and a highway where the volcanic fragments and ash, known as tephra, were falling. The tephra prompted temporary closures at the national park around the summit and a partial closure of Highway 11, an important route around the island, on either side of the park.
Hawaii County officials also opened a shelter at a district gymnasium for residents and tourists impacted by the road closure or falling tephra. There were no people using the shelter soon after it opened, said Tom Callis, a county spokesperson.
The U.S. National Weather Service issued an ashfall warning.
Volcanic tephra can irritate eyes, skin and the respiratory system, according to county officials. Tephra also can clog and cause other problems with water catchment collection systems, which are common in some parts of the Big Island, officials said.
Ash fell so heavily during a previous fountaining episode that some communities needed help from county civil defence workers to clean up ash that coated their homes, Callis said.
Kilauea is one of the world’s most active volcanoes.
A remote camera on Hawaii’s erupting Kīlauea volcano captured the moment a lava fountain engulfed it and knocked it offline on Saturday. Kilauea, one of the world’s most active volcanoes, has been erupting intermittently since Dec. 23, 2024.
