Kīlauea Erupts with 1,000-Foot Lava Fountains on Dec. 6

Hawaii's Kīlauea volcano unleashed a dramatic eruption on December 6, spewing lava fountains more than 1,000 feet high from vents in the Halemaʻumaʻu crater at the volcano's summit, burying a U.S. Geological Survey monitoring camera in a shower of tephra and drawing a code orange alert for ongoing activity.

The episode began at 8:45 a.m. local time and continued for 12.1 hours, with multiple vents producing sustained fountains that reached heights of 1,000 to 1,200 feet, according to the USGS. The agency, which operates a network of cameras around the summit in Hawaii Volcanoes National Park on the Big Island, captured the event from various angles until one device was overwhelmed. Positioned on the south rim of the crater about 2,000 feet from the nearest vent, the camera recorded an inclined lava fountain advancing before it was engulfed in rock fragments, dirt and ash between 9:55 a.m. and 9:57 a.m. Hawaiian Standard Time. Footage showed the lens flickering through colors as tephra accumulated, rendering the feed offline.

This marked the 38th eruptive episode in an intermittent sequence that started on December 23, 2024, with each burst typically lasting less than a day and...