Their debut album Opafire (RCA, 1991) sold close to half a million units worldwide.

When RCA/BMG released the debut album Opafire, it gained international success and heavy rotation radio airplay.

26 spots on the Gavin Report "New Adult Contemporary Most Radio Plays" chart and Top Ten spots in R&R magazine, as well as reaching charts in Germany, Italy, Japan, France, Canada, the United Kingdom, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands, and Taiwan.

Opafire headlined many music festivals, theaters, and clubs, such as the Oxfam International Festival Tour, the Whole Life Expo Tour, the Stern Grove Festival, the Great American Music Hall and Yoshi's Night Club in San Francisco and Oakland California, The Baked Potato in Los Angeles, as well as large "Listener Appreciation Concert" performances for various radio stations.

In 1998, the musical group Opafire was put on sabbatical by Zachary Norman E. While healing from a hang gliding accident, he cited his apathy for Clear Channel Communications newer nationally syndicated smooth jazz radio format and his desire to compose music for film and television in his recording studio in Hawaii on the island of Maui.