A 3-year-old, a new father and a grandmother were among those killed. Witnesses are left wondering if their deaths will make a difference this year.
Video courtesy of Nick Wendrych
Sirens blaring and lights flashing, Honolulu Fire Engine 8 crawled its way through a cloud of smoke.
Keaka Drive was packed with parked cars, New Year’s Eve revelers and fireworks popping off as children ran around.
Capt. Ryan Chong, the incident commander, tried to make sense of what he was seeing. Called to a “hazardous condition” with four injured, he didn’t know what they were looking for.
But like moths to a flame, the wounded came out of the shadows. Cut by glass, clothes burned, in a daze. A man emerged from the smoke in his underwear, shreds of his clothes either seared onto him or blown right off, exposing charred skin on his back and legs.
Chong spoke into his radio.
I need more companies, he said. Send the cavalry.
The scenes that unfolded next were that of a war zone. Bodies in the street. One under rubble. Panicked children looking for their parents. Neighbors turned unrecognizable, blackened by soot and burns. First responders had to override their basic instincts to treat every person they saw and instead rushed to deliver critical patients to ambulances down the street.
Chong didn’t realize until later that he was responding to what would turn out to be the deadliest fireworks accident in Hawaiʻi history.
Just before midnight, officials said, a partygoer had lit a “cake” of multiple fireworks that tipped over, shooting into boxes of unused fireworks stored in an open garage and triggering a chain reaction no one could stop. For several minutes, a massive fireball could be seen for miles, sparkling in the sky. The sight dazzled a man standing on his lānai a quarter-mile away who captured the lights bursting in the air on his drone.
On the ground, it boomed like a series of bombs. The force and heat of the explosion sent debris through the air, crumbled part of the party hosts’ home and tore through bodies, breaking bones and scalding skin.
A fire ball exploded on Keaka Drive, spreading smoke and sending shrapnel flying.
In an instant, the celebration turned fatal for six people. A 3-year-old and his mother. Two sisters in their 60s. A 23-year-old woman just starting her adult life. A young man who had just become a father.
Two dozen others were seriously or critically injured, still scarred physically and psychologically.
The tragedy has ignited calls for a crackdown on aerial fireworks, which were already illegal but often tolerated by island law enforcement agencies. In its wake, new laws have amped up enforcement capabilities and penalties. Certain fireworks offenses are now felonies.
But it remains to be seen whether the tragedy on Keaka Drive will impact a local culture stubbornly committed to celebrating holidays with illegal explosives, meant to be used only by licensed professionals. This week brings the first real test.
Those who witnessed the carnage and its aftermath firsthand – neighbors, first responders, a burn specialist in Arizona – hope the disaster serves as a warning that only needs to be delivered once. As New Year’s Eve approaches again, and the specter of another explosive Honolulu night looms, they urged community members to ask themselves a question.
Is it worth it?
“That family, that neighborhood, will never be the same,” Chong said. “Lives have been changed and shattered for sure. Kids growing up without parents, moms, aunts and uncles. You’ve got to weigh risk and reward.
“Are your friends’ and family’s lives worth fireworks?”
Countdown To Midnight
On New Year’s Eve, the Āliamanu neighborhood was buzzing with residents hosting parties and revelers bouncing from one house to the next. It was a block party vibe, neighbor Jack Kaauwai, Jr. recalled, and the celebration at 4144 Keaka Drive was the biggest on the block.
The area has historically been home to mainly blue collar Hawaiian and Filipino families, he said, and remains a place where “everybody knows everybody.”
The residents of 4144 Keaka Drive were well-liked in the neighborhood. A Vietnamese family owns the home and rented to several tenants, including the Benginos, who are Filipino. The families were not related but were connected, Kaauwai said. Their children, now adults, went to Radford High School together. Even though they’re grown, Kaauwai still refers to them as kids.
Jack Kaauwai Jr., who grew up on Keaka Drive, said fireworks have always been a big part of New Year’s celebrations there. (Kevin Fujii/Civil Beat/2025)
Of those “kids,” Kaauwai said he is closest to Cedric Benigno, a man in his 30s known to help neighbors get jobs in the junk removal business. Their families have long exchanged food, including ube cookies and blondies — Kaauwai called them “haole brownies.”
So about 20 minutes before midnight, Kaauwai stopped by to say hello. Children were playing. White plastic tables and chairs were set up in the carport. It felt like the whole neighborhood was there. Kaauwai estimated 60 to 70 people, family and friends. Women were dolled up for the occasion, their hair and makeup just so.
He remembered seeing Cedric’s mom Carmelita Benigno, her sister Nelie Ibarra, Ibarra’s daughter Cherwyn Rae Turalva, and Jennifer Van, a “neighborhood girl” in her early 20s, around a table, talking and eating. Everyone was smiling and wishing each other a Happy New Year.
Cedric’s brother, Nelson Benigno Jr., was carrying his 3-year-old son Cassius Ramos-Benigno. Cassius’s mother, Chastina Ramos, was nearby.
“Everybody’s just hanging out, drinking,” Kaauwai said. “Everybody was just having fun, dancing and stuff.”
Kaauwai gave them some lomi ʻōʻio he’d made, a dish of spoon-scraped raw fish, and chili pepper water. Cedric reciprocated with BBQ steak, chicken and pancit, Filipino stir-fried noodles. Then Kaauwai returned to his own party at the end of the block.
About 10 minutes before midnight, Angelina Bagaforo stopped by the Benignos’ too.
It’s a testament to the family’s friendliness that she felt comfortable coming over. She had moved into the house directly across the street only two weeks earlier.
A U.S. Navy petty officer first class, Bagaforo was temporarily crashing with friends in Āliamanu. She had just finished a deployment in the Red Sea, where her team shot down missiles, UAVs and USVs – unmanned vehicles in the air and sea. Before a transfer to Pensacola, Florida, a little break in Hawaiʻi would be a time to relax, she thought, and her friends told her New Year’s would be fun.
“We were so excited, because they were like: Our neighbors throw a huge New Year’s party every year, and they have fireworks, and we don’t even have to go anywhere. We can just stay home and, like, watch it from the balcony,” she recalled.
The Benignos’ party was lively with people lighting off firecrackers and small fireworks. Bagaforo asked if they could have some sparklers to ring in the new year.
“Without even hesitation, didn’t even know who I was, they were just like: ‘We have a ton of sparklers! Do you want a shot? Do you want a beer? Do you want to hang out?’” she recalled. “They were so friendly, so welcoming, so sweet.”
Bagaforo and her friend said they would take the sparklers to their group’s kids across the street. Then they would come back after midnight.
Fireworks popped in the sky above Āliamanu in the hour before the explosion. (Video courtesy Nick Wendrych)
Not all the neighbors were celebrating.
Two houses down, Marilou, 65, was lying in her bed trying to fall asleep with prayers and meditation, but the blasts of fireworks kept puncturing her peace.
In the weeks leading up to Near Year’s, Marilou, who is from the Philippines, said she’d called 911 several times to report illegal fireworks in the neighborhood — she viewed it as her civic responsibility. But she said police never knocked on her door to gather information.
Next door to her, a 20-year-old was doing her hair and watching TV, passing the time to midnight.
Fireworks had already been going off in the neighborhood – all day, every day – for weeks since Thanksgiving. Halloween even. They were nonstop, according to the young woman. Still, the New Year’s fireworks seemed unusually powerful. They gave her an eerie feeling.
“I’ve been around fireworks my whole life — all kinds, all sounds — but these were deeper, louder, like literal bombs going off,” she wrote in a letter emailed to Civil Beat. “The vibrations were so strong they would set off car alarms.”
At 11:55 p.m., she was standing in the middle of the street, FaceTiming with her boyfriend, who was at work.
“I wanted to show him what I thought he was missing out on — how lively and full of energy it always was,” she said. “They always put on a good show every year.”
On a lanai a quarter-mile away, amateur drone pilot Nick Wendrych was hosting a party. A transplant from the mainland, Wendrych had hyped the fireworks to his loved ones on the continent and one had even come to visit to see what the fuss was about.
“Seeing the fireworks on New Year’s is one of the most incredible things about Hawaiʻi,” Wendrych said.
Back at his house on the corner of Keaka Drive and Pakini Street, Kaauwai stood at the intersection with his family, anticipating the finale.
As the minutes ticked closer to 12 p.m., Bagaforo’s friends staked out spots on their second-floor lanai and in the bed of a truck parked in the driveway, front row seats for the show.
Bagaforo found herself inside. A fellow sailor from her ship had brought over his wife and two children, and they were unsettled by the raucous pop of explosives. So Bagaforo sat with them in the living room.
She could hear kids outside laughing and screaming, chasing each other with sparklers.
In the street, the 20-year-old neighbor held up her phone to take a photo.
Just then, a firework shot straight at her. She leaped to the side. It occurred to her that the firework may have malfunctioned.
Right as that thought hit her –
BOOM
Carnage In The Street
A massive fire ball exploded in the street, fireworks popping like rapid gunfire.
POP POP POP POP POP POP POP POP
The 20-year-old neighbor jumped back, frozen, unable to process what she was seeing.
“The force of it was horrifying — the fireworks were shooting up as high as a two-story house,” she said. “The sound alone made it obvious something had gone horribly wrong. It wasn’t just loud — it was wrong. You could feel it in your whole body.”
The street was filling up with thick smoke.
Wow, it’s big, Kaauwai thought. That’s something else.
In the air, Wendrych’s drone flew over the neighborhood. In the display of his remote control, he spotted a huge glow of light with glittering bursts and streamers corkscrewing through the night sky.
Oops, Wendrych thought. That was probably not on purpose.
The explosion was caught on drone video as it unfolded. (Video courtesy Nick Wendrych)
Inside the house across the street, Bagaforo perked up. That sounded really close, she thought, but it must just be the finale.
Then she heard adults screaming. And the house started filling up with smoke. People ran into the house in a panic: Go! Go! Go!
The adults grabbed the children and ran to the back of the house, Bagaforo said. She had no idea what was happening.
POP POP POP POP POP POP POP POP
“The next thing I know, people are running down toward us, screaming for their lives,” the 20-year-old neighbor said.
The young woman’s dad rushed her into their car parked in front of the house. Once inside, she cried into the phone. Her boyfriend was still on FaceTime.
“Something went wrong — there was an explosion,” she told him. “ I don’t know what’s going on, but I’m freaking out.”
Through the car windows she saw people covered in blood, distraught.
“The little kids were screaming,” she said. “It was complete chaos.”
The boom was powerful enough to turn on Marilou’s gas stove two houses down. And it damaged one of her jalousie windows. Marilou, who has lived in her home for 20 years, called 911 and then ran outside to encounter people running for their lives, blackened and bloodied by burns.
“I’m still traumatized,” she said.
A fire smoldered at 4144 Keaka Drive before fireworks seemed to reignite and pop again. (Video courtesy Nick Wendrych)
One of Bagaforo’s friends was burned as debris flew by her, Bagaforo said. And a friend who had been in the bed of the truck jumped out and ducked, putting her hands up to protect her face from shrapnel, which cut open her fingers. Friends carried her to the back bedroom where Bagaforo had hunkered down.
“There was blood all over the place,” Bagaforo said.
Down the road, near Pakini Street, Kaauwai saw two men in their 30s emerge from the smoke. A man who lived on the top floor of the Benigno house was holding another man whose neck was bleeding. His artery seemed to be severed.
“What everyone seen that night would give most people nightmares.”
Neighbor and explosion witness Jack Kaauwai Jr.
Kaauwai’s sister and her friends rushed to get towels.
“Get up there and help!” Kaauwai instructed his party guests.
Kaauwai stayed behind with the man with the neck injury, waiting for the first ambulance. Once it came, he joined other neighbors who had rushed to the blast site with buckets of water and garden hoses trying to douse the fireworks.
Approaching the explosion point, Kaauwai walked by shell shocked people with what looked like gunpowder blown across their faces. Despite having just seen the same people minutes prior, Kaauwai hardly recognized anyone.
“What everyone seen that night would give most people nightmares,” he said.
First Responders, Neighbors Band Together
An ambulance and fire engine arrived to the explosion site by 12:07 a.m. (Video courtesy Nick Wendrych)
Within minutes, Engine 8 pulled up to the scene. Fire Capt. Chong logged their arrival as 12:07 a.m. and quickly realized this was a mass casualty event. They would have to triage.
Emergency Medical Services personnel arrived and parked at the intersection of Pakini Street, about 100 yards away. With Keaka Drive clogged with cars and people, they couldn’t get any closer, so the victims would have to come to them. Areas were designated based on the severity of injuries.
“If you can walk, walk to the ambulance!” Chong yelled over the sound of ongoing fireworks in the surrounding area.
Chong tried to make sense of the scene. It was chaos. People were yelling at him to help their loved ones. But they had to find the most in need first. And they didn’t know how many people were hurt.
Honolulu Fire Capt. Ryan Chong was the incident commander the night of the deadly Āliamanu fireworks explosion. Part of the first arriving unit, he said there was no time to treat and comfort patients as they normally would. (Screenshot: Honolulu Fire Dept YouTube)
Another firefighter climbed out of the truck with medical bags and approached a woman unconscious on the ground. Initially, she had a pulse. But she had a catastrophic head injury, and the pulse disappeared.
She was gone. They moved on.
It sounds callous, Chong said in reflection, but they had to focus on the people they could save.
“For us, that’s a weird thing to do,” Chong said. “We’re not used to that.”
“Help my friend! Help my friend!” A man yelled.
Chong walked over to another woman lying on the ground and checked for a pulse. There was none. He did a quick assessment. This woman had a head injury even worse than the last.
“I can’t do anything,” Chong told the man. “I’m sorry, she’s gone.”
Sisters Carmelita Bengino, 61, and Nelie Ibarra, 58, would be pronounced dead on site.
The scene was a mess. Glass everywhere. The firework cake was still smoldering. The lip of the Benignos’ roof was threatening to fall. Chong wondered: Is it safe for us to be here? Are we in any danger? But he didn’t have time to dwell on those thoughts.
Across the street, when they felt it was safe, Bagaforo and her friends left the back bedroom and took stock of the damage.
“The cabinets had blasted off the walls,” she said. “Tiles were falling. The drop ceiling was broken. The sliding glass door was blown off the rails. Windows were blown in. There was glass everywhere.”
There’s people out there, Bagaforo’s friend said.
Trained to respond to mass casualty events, Bagaforo thought: OK, let’s go help them.
“It was kind of ironic that we thought we left the most dangerous place in the world only to come home to one of the most dangerous situations we ever found ourselves in,” she reflected later.
With smoke still heavy in the air and debris everywhere, Bagaforo said people were walking around “dazed and confused.” The first person she approached was covered in glass.
“I mean, it looked like he was holding a glass bomb, and it just exploded from his hairline to his toes,” she said. “He was just covered in shrapnel.”
He had people with him, she said, and he was talking, coherent. She advised those around him to keep him talking and not to move him, to wait for the paramedics.
Running farther down the street, Bagaforo saw a woman on the ground, screaming.
Bagaforo asked her if she could walk. She said yes. Bagaforo urged her to make her way to the ambulances down the street.
“I can’t leave him,” the woman said.
Bagaforo looked down to see a man lying on the ground. He was slipping in and out of consciousness, but he was able to answer Bagaforo’s questions.
What’s your name?
Kevin Vallesteros.
When is your birthday?
Today, he told her. Jan. 1.
She tried to keep him awake. When she asked if he could walk, she saw that he had a compound fracture — his leg bone had broken through his skin.
Where’s my son? Vallesteros asked. He was only 3 months old.
Bagoforo didn’t know, but passersby told him the baby was safe.
She waited with Vallesteros until the paramedics came, and they carried him on a stretcher to the ambulance pick-up area.
One of the last things he said to her was, “I need to stay alive for my son.”
‘It Starts To Hit You’
Red emergency responder vehicle lights could be seen from the sky after the explosion as fireworks in the surrounding area continued to pop off. (Video courtesy Nick Wendrych)
About seven miles away, Honolulu Fire Capt. Sean Arakaki’s crew had marked themselves available for the next call and considered going back to the station to wait.
“Cap, can we just park on the side and watch the fireworks?” his driver asked.
So they did. They pulled over in Chinatown near the waterfront and took in the spectacle.
“It was beautiful,” Arakaki said. “There were so many aerials that night, so many different colors. We didn’t even have a prime location, but everywhere was beautiful.”
Honolulu Fire Capt. Sean Arakaki was the acting battalion chief the night of the deadly Āliamanu fireworks explosion. (Screenshot: Honolulu Fire Dept YouTube)
Then the call came in. Keaka Drive needed help.
Fire Engine 1 raced down the highway, speeding through darkness and smoke as fireworks boomed around them. Even with their windows up and their own sirens blaring, Arakaki said he could feel each aerial thump in his chest as it exploded in the sky.
On the drive, Arakaki listened to the radio for updates from Chong. But it was eerily quiet, often an indication there’s a lot of work being done at a scene and not enough hands.
Yet when Chong did provide an update, Arakaki said, he sounded calm.
“Within the fire service, we have our own heroes amongst heroes, and he is one of mine,” Arakaki later said of Chong. “To then see … the gravity and the scale of it all, and to hear what he was faced with, it’s superhuman.”
Turning onto Pakini Street at approximately 12:27 a.m. Arakaki encountered a blur of blue and red lights, police and EMS clustered together, with civilians milling about and cars trying to get in and out.
Once people saw the lights — and Arakaki’s uniform — he was inundated.
Help me, they said. Help my kid. Help my wife. Help my husband.
Emergency responders were stationed at the intersection of Pakini Street and Keaka Drive with more on Salt Lake Boulevard nearby. (Video courtesy Nick Wendrych)
Arakaki saw people who looked like zombies, waddle-walking with a blank gaze. Not saying much. Their ear drums had probably been blown out by the blast, he would later think.
One man, whose wife’s feet were bloodied by glass shards, cursed at Arakaki and complained they weren’t being helped. He had to block them out. Now the acting battalion chief, Arakaki needed to find Chong and take over command of the scene.
“And that’s the hard part,” Arakaki said. “What could have been perceived to them as we’re not paying attention is us quickly scanning and realizing that, comparatively, your loved one is OK.”
At the blast site, Arakaki took in the destruction. Multiple blood trails and shattered glass. A pile of spent fireworks tubes and overturned tables and chairs. Spalled concrete on the home. The smell of sulfur and burnt paper in the air.
The bodies of two women on the ground.
“The injuries were just catastrophic,” he said. “You can’t imagine.”
Arakaki watched as the son of one of the women realized the person lying on the pavement was his mother.
“I think we allowed him to peel the blanket off to ID her,” he said, “and then just standing there going through grief, like, that’s his mom.”
With the arrival of additional first responders, Chong was relieved of triage duties and freed up to help move people out of the “hot zone.” A young woman couldn’t walk, so Chong carried her to the ambulance area.
To a group standing around, Chong delivered orders.
“Put your beers down and come grab this stuff and carry the guy down there and then bring the board back,” he told them.
There was a burned pile of rubble in front of 4144 Keaka Drive on New Year’s Day, after a deadly fireworks explosion (Hawaii News Now/2025)
When they ran low on backboards, they were resourceful. Tables from the party were repurposed as stretchers.
Keali’i Kaolulo, who lives a few houses away from the explosion site, helped transport victims to the ambulances, one by one, with a flatbed hand cart. Grabbing them, he said, felt like touching a pot of boiling water.
Roscoe Kalilikane, who had been across the street around midnight, rushed to help 3-year-old Cassius Ramos-Benigno.
“He was so hot I couldn’t even hold him,” Kalilikane said.
Cassius made it to the hospital but would die six days later.
Roscoe Kalilikane rushed to help after a devastating fireworks explosion in Āliamanu. (Hawaii News Now)
Throughout the incident, Chong mostly managed to maintain the stoic detachment of a seasoned first responder. But one moment broke through his emotional wall.
A young boy, maybe 5 years old, was looking for his mom. His mother was in an ambulance, Chong recalled, and was labeled “red” – critical.
“Then it starts to hit you, like, poor kid,” Chong said. “Before that, you’re just going and don’t have time to stop and think about everything.”
Knowing the party was attended by children, who often hide during emergencies, Arakaki called for a thorough search of the blast zone, including in trees and under cars.
Scrub everything, Arakaki ordered.
A small bathroom that used to be off the side of the garage had been reduced to rubble, the drywall crumbled and the water still running. Chong didn’t think there was anyone left.
Then one of his team members spotted an elbow sticking out of the rubble.
“We found one more!”
The team dug through the debris to uncover a young woman in a sports jersey, gasping for breath. It was Jennifer Van. The 23-year-old wouldn’t make it; she died later that morning.
A Journey Across The Ocean
In the early hours of New Year’s Day, a Wednesday, patients were rushed to The Queen’s Medical Center, Hawaiʻi’s only Level 1 trauma center. There, they were assessed and stabilized.
The most critically injured were transferred to Straub Benioff Medical Center a mile away, which had to scramble to accommodate 10 victims of the blast on top of patients admitted before the explosion. A total of 21 burn patients were crammed into a unit that usually has only four beds.
Nearly 3,000 miles away, in Phoenix, Dr. Kevin Foster was in contact with the Western Region Burn Disaster Consortium, a regional disaster response group. Straub is a member.
Hawaiʻi was overwhelmed with burn patients, Foster was told. Could anyone take some of them in? Foster, director of burn services for the Diane & Bruce Halle Arizona Burn Center, volunteered.
“We can take however many you need,” he said.
Hawaiʻi would send six, all in their 20s and 30s: Drew Sanbei, Sammi Feliciano, Tommy Dao and his girlfriend Abigail Allie. Melissa Cabrera and her boyfriend, Kevin Vallesteros — the man with the compound fracture, who Bagaforo spoke to on the street.
On that Saturday morning, the U.S. Air Force took the extraordinary step of airlifting the patients from Joint Base Pearl Harbor Hickam to Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport. Six Phoenix Fire Department ambulances delivered each patient to the Arizona Burn Center.
There, 70 medical professionals were waiting to receive them.
“We were ready for them,” Foster said.
Courtesy of Phoenix Fire Department/2025
Courtesy of Phoenix Fire Department/2025
Courtesy of Phoenix Fire Department/2025
Courtesy of Phoenix Fire Department/2025
Courtesy of Phoenix Fire Department/2025
The patients’ injuries were profound.
All were burned on more than 60% of their bodies, GoFundMe pages seeking donations to help them defray medical costs would later say. Some had fractures or other traumatic injuries. Everyone had small lacerations, contusions and puncture wounds, the result of shrapnel flying through the air during the explosion.
All the patients were intubated and unconscious, heavily sedated and on medications to keep their blood pressure and heart rates up, Foster said.
By 11 p.m., everyone was tucked into bed, Foster said, about to embark on a grueling healing process.
Victims Fight For Their Lives In Arizona
In the morning, each of the six patients underwent surgery.
“And then every day for the next two months, one of them was in the operating room,” Foster said. “Some days, it was two or three of them.”
Extreme burns damage skin tissue beyond repair, requiring surgery to remove damaged areas and graft healthy skin in its place. Most of the patients had surgery twice a week until all their wounds were grafted, Foster said. At least one person was subject to a dozen surgical procedures in the first few weeks of recovery alone.
Vallesteros’s burns were the most extensive.
He was among those closest to the explosion, according to Kaauwai, and his burns covered almost 90% of his body, Foster said. And then there was the issue of his leg.
The doctor called it an open fracture. Bone exposed. Muscle destroyed.
“It was making him sick,” Foster said. “He had an infection, and it really needed to come off, but his injuries were so profound that he was not going to survive under any circumstances.”
Kevin Vallesteros was a new father to a 3-month-old when he was critically injured in the Āliamanu fireworks explosion on New Year’s Eve 2024. (GoFundMe)
On Jan. 28, Vallesteros – a son, brother, boyfriend and new father – passed away. He was 29.
The medical team made sure he was comfortable, Foster said. He slipped away peacefully.
“We do our best to save everybody who comes in here, but sometimes the wounds are overwhelming,” Foster said. “And so that was, that was pretty tough.”
Vallesteros’ obituary on the Hawaiian Memorial Park Mortuary’s website described him as kind, hardworking, responsible and humble and said Melissa and their son were the lights of his life.
“His supportive nature and warm smile brought comfort and happiness to friends and family alike,” the remembrance states.
When the remaining five patients awoke, Foster said, they were surprised to learn they were in Arizona. Then, the natural questions:
Where am I?
Why am I here?
How long have I been here?
How long have I been out?
When can I go home?
Along with that was the shock and grief of learning their loved ones had also been injured and in some cases had died.
“This was not a group of strangers,” said Foster, who has worked at the burn center for more than a quarter century. “I’ve never seen anything like this before, with this large of a community of people who were all grieving at the same time over the same people in the same events.”
Along with the collective grief came the support of a group. The patients spent time together in each other’s rooms and in the hospital waiting rooms. They later participated in therapy together.
“There was a lot of support,” Foster said, noting frequent visits from Hawaiʻi-based family and friends. “Even though they were in a strange place, there were lots of familiar faces.”
Melissa Cabrera and Kevin Vallesteros (GoFundMe)
Sammi Feliciano (GoFundMe)
The support was crucial. The patients had to relearn basic tasks of daily living: how to get out of bed, walk, use their hands, feed themselves, go to the bathroom.
“It’s a whole relearning of how to be a person again,” Foster said.
Despite their circumstances, the patients fought through those difficulties, making what Foster called a “spiritual journey” that the medical staff was heartened to observe.
“It really is a triumph of the human spirit,” the doctor said.
Foster’s team sees a lot of fireworks injuries, but those from Āliamanu were unique. Particles and projectiles embedded in their skin predisposed the patients to infection.
Drew Sanbei battled multiple infections, according to health updates posted on GoFundMe.
Before the blast, the 39-year-old Kakaako resident worked in health care. A CT scan technologist, he had attended the Benigno party with his girlfriend. The girlfriend and several of her family members were also injured in the disaster, KHON reported.
Sanbei suffered a concussion, was severely burned on more than 60% of his body and was sent to the hospital as a John Doe, his father Arthur Sanbei told the TV station. For hours, his family hadn’t known where he was, and they worried when he didn’t show up for lunch.
“That’s a parent’s worst nightmare,” Arthur Sanbei said.
Drew Sanbei overcame burn wounds and infection and was able to leave the Arizona burn center and return to Hawaiʻi. (GoFundMe)
Drew Sanbei’s parents were by his side as he fought for his life in Arizona.
Early on, a serious lung infection necessitated his transfer to another Arizona hospital. There, ECMO therapy — a type of life support that pumps oxygen-rich blood into the body — saved his life, and he was able to return to the burn center.
But there would be stumbling blocks ahead. An additional serious infection that required more respiratory therapy, followed by another drug-resistant bacterial infection.
“Burn injuries are just about the worst thing that can happen to people.”
Dr. Kevin Foster, director of the burn center in Phoenix, Arizona
By March, Sanbei was gaining strength. He was able to leave the intensive care unit and move into the adult care wing of the burn center. His wounds were healing. Health care workers were able to remove the tubes from his throat, allowing him to eat a regular diet.
“He is talking and is fully aware, comprehending his situation,” a March GoFundMe update said. “With assistance, Drew is able to get out of bed, stand, sit on a chair and take multiple steps with a walker.”
On March 17, according to a GoFundMe post, Sanbei was discharged to the Reunion Rehabilitation Hospital in Phoenix. And after nine days in rehab, he was “aching to be free” of hospital confinement. Finally, he was discharged.
“Entering as a wobbly walker with ambulatory assist, he exited walking unassisted for short stretches,” an April update said.
The burn unit at the Arizona Burn Center became a temporary home for Hawaiʻi patients. (Courtesy photo)
By May, Sanbei was back in Hawaiʻi. In a message of thanks posted on GoFundMe, Sanbei and his family said community support helped him through some “decidedly dark episodes.”
“Emersion from the fog and into a promising and bright future feels very much like a second blessing of life itself,” they said. “You all have become a part of us and for that no amount of expressed gratitude will ever be sufficient.”
At various times, each patient reached a point at which their wounds had healed, they no longer needed IV medications and they were able to move and take care of themselves.
Sanbei had been eager to get home to Hawaiʻi, according to his GoFundMe updates. Others were more apprehensive, Foster said, scared to leave the support of the hospital.
While their wounds are healed today, they are scarred, and there is “lots of physical disability,” Foster said.
Burn injuries can be itchy, painful and stiff, with tight skin making it difficult to move, and the area can be tingly, numb or sensitive to certain temperatures. Burn patients’ bodies can also go into a type of overdrive that makes it difficult to keep on weight and muscle, leaving them feeling weak.
The Āliamanu patients may need additional reconstructive surgeries over time, Foster said. And they carry psychological wounds as well.
Burn injuries, Foster said, are “uniquely horrifying.”
“Burn injuries are just about the worst thing that can happen to people,” he said. “It takes a long time to fix the wounds.”
Still Healing
Nearly a year after the blast, almost no one wants to talk about it, at least not publicly. Civil Beat reached out to dozens of family members, friends and neighbors of those who attended Keaka Drive New Year’s Eve gathering. We received very few responses.
It’s clear though the explosion changed the lives of several families forever.
Graphic by April Estrellon/Civil Beat/2025
It blasted four gaping holes into the Benigno family tree.
Cassius Ramos-Benigno, only 3 years old. The boy had a close relationship with his dad, Kaauwai said.
“That was his boy,” Kaauwai said. “That was his pride.”
His mother, 30-year-old Chastina Ramos, died nearly a month later.
Carmelita Benigno and Nelie Ibarra were both beloved mothers. Benigno’s home was known as a “place of laughter and togetherness, where everyone felt like family,” her obituary said. Ibarra was known for her “radiant smile and a generous heart,” according to hers.
Carmelita Benigno, 61, was a mother and grandmother. (Screenshot: Hawaii Memorial Park Mortuary)
Nelie Ibarra, 58, died alongside her sister. (Screenshot: Hawaii Memorial Park Mortuary)
Carmelita’s husband Nelson, who was out of town on New Year’s Eve, told KITV earlier this year that he has trouble sleeping at night, and sometimes dreams of his wife.
“We didn’t say goodbye to each other,” he said.
While Melissa Cabrera and Kevin Vallesteros were hospitalized, Cabrera’s parents had to step in as caretakers for their baby, according to their GoFundMe. The child is now growing up without a father. The baby is about 15 months old now, an age at which one of a child’s first and favorite words is often “Dada.”
Kevin Vallesteros was a new father to a three-month-old when he was critically injured in the Āliamanu fireworks explosion on New Year’s Eve 2024. He died on Jan. 28. (Hawaiian Memorial Park Mortuary)
Jennifer Van’s family is devastated.
“She was such a carefree person. She was in her early 20s just enjoying her life,” her cousin Loan Dao told KITV earlier this year.. “She was always there to try to take care of her family.”
Jennifer Van was only 23 years old. (GoFundMe)
Adding to the punishing pain of loss is the threat of criminal consequences.
In the aftermath of the explosion, the Honolulu Police Department arrested 10 party attendees — five men and five women in their 20s and 30s — for offenses including fireworks violations and endangering their young children. The arrestees included family members of both the homeowner and the tenants.
Kaauwai’s friend Cedric Benigno, who lost his mother, aunt and nephew in the explosion, was among those arrested. Later, police also booked the owners of 4144 Keaka Drive.
However, so far none have been charged and police have declined to comment on the status of the investigation. Officials also have not shared any information about where the party hosts purchased the fireworks that detonated, nor an additional 500 pounds of unexploded fireworks police seized from a nearby van.
The disaster touched off a community reckoning, with many expressing outrage about illegal fireworks in Hawaiʻi and accusing law enforcement of enabling a permissive culture that has allowed illicit festivities to go too far. The Legislature took the baton and, over the summer, Gov. Josh Green signed a package of laws aimed at cracking down on illegal fireworks, including elevating certain offenses to felony status and allowing police to cite and fine fireworks users with a lower standard of proof.
The Hawaiʻi Department of Law Enforcement, which has been collecting illegal explosives at amnesty events this year, gained the ability to use drones and conduct sting operations targeting fireworks.
David Yomes, chair of the neighborhood board that covers Āliamanu and Salt Lake, said he would like to see police really bring down the hammer this year.
“You might ruin their party,” said Yomes, himself a retired cop, “but things need to be done.”
First responders on the scene a year ago worry that memories are short. Arakaki is a former Air Force medic, but Keaka Drive impacted him heavily. He has a daughter the same age as the toddler who perished.
When he heard aerials go off this Fourth of July, Arakaki felt a spike of adrenaline rooted in anger. He thought of the bodies on the street.
“I would get so angry,” he said. “‘How could they? Don’t you guys know?’ But they’re still doing it.”
If people had seen the gruesome destruction he witnessed on Keaka Drive, he said, there’s no way they would ever use this stuff.
Honolulu Police spokesman Kerry Yoshida said the agency is calling on everyone to celebrate responsibly this year. He noted that the use of illegal fireworks resulting in serious injury or death is now a class A felony, and officers will be out in increased numbers this year.
“This isn’t a holiday tradition – it’s illegal and a community risk,” he said. “Fireworks only last seconds, but the consequences can last much longer. HPD is committed to preventing tragedies, and we need the community with us.”
If you’d like to attend a professional fireworks show on New Year’s Eve, professional permitted displays will be available in three locations: offshore Waikīkī, offshore the Ko Olina lagoons in Kapolei and in front of the Wai Kai water park in Ewa Beach.
Now, residents there are looking ahead to this upcoming New Year’s with a sense of unease.
The explosion is still very much on Marilou’s mind. She thinks every day about 3-year-old Cassius Ramos-Benigno. She jumps when she hears loud noises, whether it’s a trash can hitting the street or the rev of a motorcycle. And she’s nervous about Dec. 31 approaching again.
“We don’t want this thing to happen again,” she said.
This year, Kaauwai predicts Keaka Drive will be quieter. But across the islands, he thinks fireworks will continue as usual. People in Hawaiʻi often say it’s tradition. He says that’s bunk.
“’I’m Hawaiian, Chinese, Filipino. I know tradition is red firecracker,” Kaauwai said. “All these aerials is not tradition.”
Kaauwai himself used to love fireworks. Growing up on Keaka Drive, it was part of life. After the festivities, there would be enough rubbish to fill two truckloads, he said, and if it rained, firecracker remnants would stain the road red for months.
As an adult, he once dropped $10,000 on a set to pop off – enough firecrackers, bottle rockets and roman candles to stack up to his ceiling. But the explosion has changed him. Going forward, if he’s invited to a party with fireworks, Kaauwai said he won’t go.
“Life is priority No. 1,” he said. “It’s not worth it. You know it. I know it.”
How We Reported This Story
This story of the tragedy that unfolded in Āliamanu last New Year’s Eve and its aftermath relies on the accounts of people who witnessed the events firsthand, ranging from neighbors to rescuers. However, none of the core families who hosted or attended the party, or the families of victims, seemed to be willing to talk.
In the end, most of the information about victims, their injuries and their family connections came from piecing together GoFundMe accounts posted about them, as well as interviews with neighbors, first responders and the head of the burn center in Arizona where those most injured were flown.
Civil Beat had requested interviews from dozens of others. We canvassed the neighborhood, left voicemails, emailed through GoFundMe and LinkedIn, sent text messages, mailed letters and asked intermediaries to make introductions.
One recipient of a hand-delivered letter emailed us her account of the tragedy. A 20-year-old resident of Keaka Drive, she declined to reveal her name “out of respect for everyone involved, this community and because of how serious and sensitive this all is to this day.” Using a research database, Civil Beat confirmed there is a 20-year-old woman listed at the address she described.
Another neighbor who received our letter, Marilou, asked that we not publish her last name for fear of retaliation. Civil Beat relies on unnamed, or partially named, sources only in cases in which a person with direct knowledge of a situation can offer factual information that couldn’t be obtained any other way. Marilou and her 20-year-old neighbor were included because they brought important observations to this story.
This account also relies in part on interviews Civil Beat and other local outlets conducted in the immediate aftermath of the explosion. Keali’i Kaolulo and Roscoe Kalilikane spoke to one of our reporters in January. We were unable to reach them again months later.
We filed public records requests for first responder reports, but those were denied due to pending investigations. Fire officials talked to us at length but Honolulu Emergency Medical Services Director Jim Ireland denied repeated requests to interview his personnel, some of whom were recognized as heroes and received awards for valor from the city.
The Honolulu Police Department also declined to be interviewed, citing the ongoing criminal investigation into the explosion.
