[4][5] In early September it appeared that the lava flow was en route to the small community of Ka'ohe Homesteads.

Community leaders and state officials began to draw up plans for evacuations and the mayor signed an emergency proclamation as the flow approached to within 0.8 miles, a distance it was expected to cover in approximately a week.

On October 22, The National Park Service announced that it would help state and county officials create an emergency route along 8 miles of the buried Chain of Craters Road in order to help Puna residents who would potentially lose access to the rest of Hawaiʻi.

[12] Construction of the Chain of Craters alternate route began by making a path over a wall of lava rock covering the road in Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park.

The 2018 lower Puna eruption which featured destructive lava flows resulting in the loss of approximately 700 homes, originated in nearby Leilani Estates.

According to the United States Census Bureau, the CDP has a total area of 2.3 square miles (6.0 km2), all of it land.

Soils underlying the Pāhoa area are volcanic in origin, deriving from the currently active Kīlauea Volcano (Earth Metrics Inc., 1986).

Legends associated with the Pāhoa area are referenced in Hawaiʻi's ancient oral history in the Pele and Hiʻiaka Myth.