HILO, Hawaii — More people are getting a firsthand look at the lava threatening a rural Big Island community.
A group of journalists got their first official tour of the lava flow Monday, following the first of a series of field trips to the area by local schoolchildren.
About 20 journalists trudged across the cracked, black lava at the town of Pahoa's waste transfer station, where the flow came within feet of burning structures before losing momentum and stalling.
The lava's surface there had cooled and hardened but was still releasing small, warm columns of air, the Hawaii Tribune-Herald reported.
The lava from Kilauea volcano emerged from a vent in June and crept through uninhabited areas until this fall, when it reached Pahoa, crossed a rural road and burned a house.
On Tuesday, the flow front remained about 2.3 miles upslope of the intersection of Highway 130 and the town's main road after advancing 225 yards overnight, said Darryl Oliveira, Hawaii County civil defense administrator.
The front was about 150 to 200 yards wide and wasn't posing an immediate threat, he said.
Civil defense and Hawaiian Volcano Observatory officials guided the journalists' tour. Earlier in the day, they took a group of schoolchildren to the section of molten rock that crossed a country road.
