Posted: Mon, 3 Jan 2011 08:03 AM - 13,897 Readers

By: Joshunda Sanders

Austin firefighters spent the first hours of 2011 tamping down several serious fires around town, including one that badly damaged an outdoor deck of the Hula Hut restaurant on Lake Austin Boulevard near Tom Miller Dam and two others that left six men severely burned.

The worst of those involved four men trying to help two women who had run out of gas. About 5:30 a.m., the pickup the men were riding in — one of whom carried a bucket of gasoline — ignited near East 10th Street and Interstate 35 after one of them lit a cigarette, Austin Fire Department spokesman Palmer Buck said.



The fire left two of the men with third-degree burns and the other two with injuries that were not considered life-threatening, Buck said. Two of the men were taken to Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio for treatment.

The two women were riding in the bed of the truck because they didn't want to sit in the cab with the smell of the open bucket of gasoline, Buck said. They weren't injured in the fire.

The pickup fire came less than an hour after firefighters rescued two elderly men who had been trapped in a burning house in the 3400 block of Mount Barker Drive in West Austin , Buck said. Firefighters rescued an 85-year-old and a man in his 90s from the collapsing home, Buck said.

Both men, who were in critical condition Saturday, were first taken to University Medical Center Brackenridge , then flown to Brooke Army Medical Center.

"It is not unusual for us to have a lot of fires on New Year's Day, but putting six people in the hospital in the space of 45 minutes is pretty unusual," Buck said.

Fire officials did not release the names of the six injured men or the two women riding in the pickup.

The Hula Hut fire started about 12:30 a.m. Saturday when embers from the finale of a fireworks show at Abel's on the Lake, an adjacent restaurant, trickled down on the thatched roof of the Hula Hut deck.



Fire officials were monitoring the fireworks shortly after midnight when the "palapa" roof, made of dried palm tree leaves, caught fire. Tim Johnson, a manager at Hula Hut, said that no one was on the deck at the time. Buck said the fire caused about $50,000 in damage. But Johnson said replacing the roof, which was charred and in clumps on the moist deck, would probably cost more than that.



The restaurant opened about noon Saturday, after health officials made sure it was safe, Johnson said.

Buck said that the truck fire serves as a reminder of the dangers of riding in a vehicle with gas in an open container.

The cause of the house fire was under investigation Saturday. Buck said the blaze caused $325,000 in damage.

Austin firefighters were "extremely busy" from 5 p.m. on New Year's Eve to 3 p.m. on New Year's Day, responding to 43 grass fires and 16 trash fires, most of which were caused by fireworks, Austin Fire Department Battalion Chief Thayer Smith said.

Smith said that total compares with two for the same time period last year, when it was raining, and only includes calls within Travis County on which the Austin Fire Department assisted.

"We hope that 2011 is a little bit quieter than the first day was," Buck said.

*  Story Contributed by: Joshunda Sanders