Lava incinerates home on Hawaii's Big Island Lava burns the first home in Pahoa. A slow-moving lava flow from an erupting volcano on Hawaii's Big Island incinerated a house, marking the first home devoured by a stream of molten rock that has crept towards the village of Pahoa for weeks, civil defence officials said. The home had been evacuated some time ago, and no injuries were reported from the river of lava, which began oozing from Kilauea Volcano in late June. Hawaii County Civil Defence officials said no other dwellings were immediately threatened. The home ignited just before noon on Monday by a finger of lava that broke out from the primary flow on Sunday, even as the leading edge came to a near standstill 145 metres away from Pahoa Village Road, the main street through town, officials said. Video posted online by civil defence showed a crackling, charcoal-colored carpet of lava enveloping the grounds around the house as flames and thick smoke engulfed the single-storey, wood-panelled home, causing it to collapse. Members of the family who had lived there stood by to "document and observe" their home burning from a safe distance, said county civil defence chief Darryl Oliveira. The only other structures destroyed in the area were a storage shed and a cattle-feeding shelter consumed by lava last month. Another offshoot of lava narrowly missed a house last month, coming within 30 metres of that building. Residents of about 50 homes in the projected path of the lava have been making preparations to flee for weeks, many emptying their houses of belongings in case an evacuation became necessary. Pahoa, a town of about 800 people, stands on the site of a former sugar cane plantation on the eastern edge of the Big Island. Most of the town's business district lies to the south of the area in greatest danger. Kilauea's current eruption began in 1983, and the flow of lava that has menaced Pahoa began bubbling out of the volcano's Pu'u O'o vent on June 27. The leading edge of the lava can reach temperatures of about 1149 degrees Celsius. Previous lava flows from Kilauea destroyed more than 180 homes between 1983 and 1990, but until this week no dwellings had been lost to the volcano since 2012.