Chasing Fire: A Photographer’s Race to Capture the Volcano’s Fury By Photographer, Author & Contributor Don Hurzeler
I mentioned in the last article that sometimes I drive out to the volcano because I think it is about to go off…and it does not go off. Other times I get lucky and show up just in time for a big time eruption.
The day before my last article published, I checked YouTube for a live feed on the volcano…and noticed it was spattering. This was three in the morning. I did not shave, bathe nor have breakfast. I jumped into the clothes I had put out before I went to bed and got into my pickup that already had all my camera gear…and headed to the volcano. It was a two hour drive and, if the volcano did erupt, I would be there at sunrise…a perfect time to photograph an eruption. Here was the scene when I got there…
It looked like it was going to erupt, but it had not yet erupted. It was, however, pouring out a lot of lava.
The lava was all over the caldera floor…things were looking good.
Withing a half hour of arriving, the eruption began.
As we would say here in Hawaii, it went from small kine to big time in no time. Within minutes, it looked like this…
That arch or rainbow of lava was 500 feet high and 500 feet from left to right…and it poured out like that for over 12 hours. The output of lava was enough to fill something like 4000 Olympic sized swimming pools. A massive eruption. It sounded like a jet engine.
Along the way, the eruption grew “dirty” by pounding the caldera floor and stirring the tephra, dirt, pumice and volcanic sand up into the air. From there, the heat from the eruption caused major wind currents next to the fountaining lava and vortices formed…looking like tornadoes dancing across the caldera floor.
I left some eight hours after arriving. Here is a photo looking back at some of the crowd..actually quite light given the size of the eruption.
About the time I decided to leave, my business partner, CJ Kale, arrived to photograph it until it stopped erupting. He got great shots, as well, because two other vents opened and contributed to the huge outpouring of lava.
So, that is how it works sometimes…the time before I spent 36 hours on the rim and then missed the eruption by five hours. This time, I got there just before it started and got some great shots.
And then…
Episode 35 arrived on the night of October 17, 2025. I was ready…sent my neighbors home from a dinner party we had hosted and headed for the volcano.
The eruption was HUGE. Two vents opened up and sent lava 1500 feet in the air. Along with the lava it sent various materials into the air…tephra/reticulite, ash, volcanic sand and Pele’s Hair…pure silica stretched out to look exactly like golden human hair. What goes up must come down…right on my brand new pickup as I neared Hawaii Volcanoes National Park.
I drove into something looking like a snow storm. That was the white ash…and it was slippery. Next came the volcanic sand falling on my car like a small sized hail storm. And then…those “hail stones” became baseball to watermelon sized “hail stones”..pounding my car and littering the roadway. Panic ensued.
It took me twenty minutes to drive out of the volcanic storm and into clear air. The good news…the really big pieces falling out of the air were a volcanic material called reticulite…big in size, almost zero in weight or mass. It is silica filled with gas and appearing like a much lighter pumice…much lighter. Those watermelon sized rocks might have weighed an ounce or two. The photo that follows is of a piece I found embedded between my pickup cab and the pickup bed. I would call that piece…medium sized.
Damage done by all of this…some damage done to my nerves…it scared the heck out of me. Very little damage done to the brand new pickup, some scratches and paint chips, but nothing serious. I washed it off carefully when I got home, washed out the engine compartment and checked/cleaned all the filters. Very carefully cleaned the windshield and windshield wipers because that material will ruin the windshield in an instant, had I run the windshield wipers before cleaning the wipers and windshield.
There is a video of the “storm” on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1Eh1vzhFjq/
The eruption itself was one of the best ever. It put out so much material that it only lasted seven hours. The heat could be felt from my viewing are, which was over a mile away. The sound was like a jet engine. I was there until it went out and I was not alone. In fact, I had to park three miles from my viewing position and hike through a rain forest at midnight to reach my photo spot. There were hundreds of people there when I arrived, but only a few left when the eruption stopped at 3:30am.
On the way home, I drove through the area where I had encountered the lava material downdraft. The rock fall had stopped when the eruption stopped. The material dropped on that area was still all over the road and the sides of the road. Those rocks are extremely fragile and any rock that had been run over was now dust on the road. The rest will be blown away by the wind or rain and will also soon be dust. And, before you ask, that dust is really really bad to breathe. When I am in that area, I always take a professional mask with me and I use it.
Ok…I know that part about the rocks falling on me from the sky will not actually encourage you to go see an eruption. But, that rock storm happens rarely. Most of the time it comes down in an area known as the Ka’u Desert (the road I was on from Kona skirts the side of that desert). If you drive up from the Hilo side, the chances of running into that kind of a mess are greatly diminished.
If you get a chance to view it in person, I encourage you to do so. Follow the National Park rules, don’t wander off designated trails and bring along a coat, water, face mask (if needed…most times it is not), hat, suntan lotion and flashlight. And look for me…an old guy with a really good camera and every lens know to mankind.
Let me know if I can help you plan your own chance on seeing new land arrive in our beautiful state. You can reach me at djhzz@aol.com.
Aloha.
Don and Linda are “lucky to live Hawaii” for the past fourteen year and claims to have never experienced an unhappy day on the island.
However, he does admit that he thinks of PV often…as it stands today and as it was. And what he misses most from those early days on the hill are growing up with a great set of friends and neighbors and the unimaginable freedom enjoyed in those days. He claims that he was raised like a free range chicken, able to hitch hike to get around town, to go out in surf that would scare any parent and to carry around a bow and arrow or small caliber gun to protect himself from rattle snakes when he hiked the canyons…not as a highly trained, accredited, licensed gun owner…but as a 12 year old kid whose dad treated guns like tools…there for protection and to be treated with respect and care.
And the best part of his freedom, no cell phones. Don was basically on his own and no one could track him or reach him until he decided to come home. Don always knew when dinner was served and he made sure to sneak in the door a few minutes prior. And, get this, dinner always included beer for Don…from about age 9 on. Or a milkshake made using 31 Flavors Baskin and Robbins ice cream from the Hollywood Rivera store mixed with crème de menthe. His dad felt the alcohol would whet Don’s appetite and help him grow from the skinny kid he was in those days. That did not work, but it did make him (temporarily) unafraid of orcas.
You can catch up with Don Hurzeler on Facebook. He is also on Instagram @donhurzeler. His book writing website is donhurzeler.com and his photography website is lavalightgalleries.com.
For a kid who grew up on the mean streets of Palos Verdes Estates, parented in a way that would land everyone in jail today, but supported, coached and loved…Don came out alright. A PV boy who fully understands how lucky he was that his parents built their dream home on a hill with a million lights sparkling below…or a fog bank a thousand feet thick.