Here’s a news report on yesterday’s fire at the Marco Polo Condominium for those who may not have seen the wall-to-wall news coverage. I’ve seen news stories about the fire in places across the country and even internationally.

It’s terrible to lose lives in such a fire, but it could certainly have been much worse. What if that fire had broken out at night when many more residents would have been home? That’s a scary thought.

My sister’s trust still owns her apartment on the 13th floor of the building. It’s been listed for sale for a few months, and there’s no doubt this fire is going to make selling anything very difficult for quite a while.

I’m also served a couple of terms as president of a high-rise condo just up the street from the Marco Polo, so I’ve got a sense of how much work it’s going to take to get that building back to some semblance of normalcy.

First there’s the immediate need to get in and secure the fire damaged units, and start to address the smoke and water damage, then assess physical damage to the building and to individual apartments.

Construction services are already in high demand with all the new construction going on, and that’s likely to drive up prices for what’s going to be needed to address fire damage.

There will be huge insurance issues. The condominium association is responsible for insuring the structure, while contents of apartments must be insured by the owners. With insurance costs soaring, some buildings have sought out lower-cost policies. I don’t know what the situation at the Marco Polo is, but a fire this big is bound to test the limits of that insurance coverage.

There are likely to be battles between insurers over just where the building’s policies end and individual owners policies must take over.

And it’s always possible that insurance won’t cover all of the costs to restore the building’s interior and exterior, get rid of smoke and water damage, and repair electrical and other systems damaged by the fire. If there are excess costs, they will have to be charged back to all the owners in the form of a special assessment, but that will take time to sort out.

According to a website maintained by the Honolulu Board of Realtors, there were eight units currently for sale, and an addition four already in escrow. I’m guessing that those sales are going to be stalled out for the foreseeable future as the costs and uncertainties left in the wake of the fire are sorted out.