Bizarre, criminal and mundane incidents combined yesterday to slow Windward O'ahu drivers on three highways.

Bones bigger than a person fell off a pickup truck after being salvaged from the decomposing carcass of a whale in Kahuku.

At first, the bones blocked traffic on Kahekili Highway headed toward Likelike Highway, but even after people pulled the bones to the median, gawkers kept traffic backed up from Ha'iku Road to Temple Valley.

Brushfires allegedly started by an arsonist near Makapu'u cut off traffic in both directions on Kalaniana'ole Highway for 6 1/2 hours yesterday, while roadwork in Nu'uanu added up to an hour to the commute of drivers using the Pali Highway to enter Honolulu.

Police arrested an Enchanted Lake man on suspicion of starting the Makapu'u fires, which burned about 8 acres of brush on the makai side of Kalaniana'ole Highway along the Ka Iwi scenic shoreline park near the Makapu'u lighthouse.

The highway was closed between the Hawai'i Kai golf course and the entrance to the lighthouse trail from 7:39 a.m. to about 2 p.m.

Honolulu Fire Department spokesman Capt. Terry Seelig said the fires started at 6:15 a.m., 7:40 a.m. and 10:30 a.m. and the firefights involved the department's helicopter and seven companies.

Seelig said the third fire started while firefighters were still battling the second one.

During the second firefight, a police sergeant and several witnesses saw a suspicious person in the area. The suspect, Kenton F. Leong, 41, of Akupa Place, was arrested but was not immediately charged.

The fires backed up traffic into Waimanalo, said Waimanalo Neighborhood Board chair Wilson Kekoa Ho, who turned around after trying to drive to Hawai'i Kai around 1 p.m.

"I was lucky because I went to Hawai'i Kai this morning and now traffic's backed up," Ho said yesterday afternoon.

WHALE DROPPINGS

In Kane'ohe, two sections of the whale's vertebrae and what appeared to be a piece of its jawbone fell from a pickup truck onto Kahekili Highway, said police Sgt. David Chang. They were not tied down and apparently slipped off during acceleration at the traffic lights at Ha'iku Road, Chang said.

The bones had been taken from a sperm whale carcass, before it was buried in Kahuku, by students and teachers at Hawaii Pacific University. HPU had a federal permit to take the bones for research.

When the bones fell onto the highway, students and passersby pulled them onto the median. And although all traffic lanes were open, drivers crawled through the intersection to gawk at the bones that were bigger than people. But apparently once the rancid scent reached their nostrils, they sped away.

Traffic headed toward Likelike Highway was backed up to Temple Valley, though Kahalu'u-bound traffic flowed smoothly.

People on foot drawn by the stench came to inspect the bones and take photographs but soon left, some holding their noses.

Brad Muromoto, 21, said he was about a half-mile away and could smell the bones carried up the valley on the wind.

His friend, Ryan Santos, 18, said at first sight he thought the material was a tree. "(The smell) makes me want to throw up," said Santos.

The odor brought Richard Kurosu from his home on the corner of Kahekili and Ha'iku.

"It's in the whole house and it's worse depending on the wind," he said. "There's nothing we can do."

BONES TO BE STUDIED

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration had given HPU a permit to take the bones for further study, said Wende Goo, NOAA spokeswoman.

"They will process samples and try to determine the age of the whale by its bones," Goo said, adding that it was unfortunate that the bones fell from the truck.

Goo said the school took a piece of the jaw, ribs, vertebrae and other bones.

The backup on the town-bound lanes of the Pali Highway was caused by roadwork in Nu'uanu.

"I was among hundreds of drivers that were stuck in this nightmare of traffic," said one motorist in a comment posted on honoluluadvertiser.com about that backup.

The motorist wasted more than an hour in the traffic jam and suggested that such road work should not begin until 10 a.m., "when most of the morning traffic has died down."

Ed Enos, of Kailua, said his typical 35-minute commute turned into an hour and 10 minutes. "The traffic was backed up all the way to Kailua," Enos said.

Kailua residents have had to endure lots of traffic congestion for more than a decade with sewer lines being replaced, hillsides stabilized, plus regular repaving and tree trimming, Enos said.

"We're the ones that want it done but it just seems like these guys can do these projects in such a way that they're not going to slam the traffic going both ways," Enos said. "It just seems like the permitting process for both the county and state for road projects never seem to take into consideration that everybody is on top of one another the entire way."

Advertiser staff writers Eloise Aguiar, Kim Fassler, Rod Ohira and Dave Dondoneau contributed to this report.