U.S. National Guard troops, police and firefighters ushered the last group of evacuees from homes on the eastern tip of Hawaii's Big Island early on Saturday, hours before creeping lava from the Kilauea volcano severed all road access to the area, officials said.
A stream of lava as wide across as three football fields flowed over a highway near a key junction on the outskirts of Kapoho, a seaside community of private homes and vacation rentals rebuilt after a destructive eruption of Kilauea in 1960.
The lava flow left Kapoho and the adjacent development of Vacationland — encompassing about 500 homes combined — cut off from the rest of the island by road, according to the Hawaii County Civil Defense agency.