The car needed a jump-start, and its owner, Mike Hale, had no time to spare.
He had returned on Saturday to his home in the Leilani Estates neighborhood on the island of Hawaii, where eruptions from the Kilauea volcano had forced residents to flee. Mr. Hale had thought he would be able to pack up his tools, dishes and camping gear. But as he and his companions started choking on the hazardous fumes released by volcanic activity, he realized they needed to get out.
The group drove away, leaving his dead car, a banged-up 2004 Ford Mustang that he sometimes rented to tourists, parked next to his mailbox on the side of the road.
By the time Mr. Hale tried to get back the next day, both would be gone. But their fate had been captured in video footage that would spread across television news and social media.
Recorded by a videographer who travels the world to capture extreme weather events, the footage showed an insatiable mound of lava marching across the road. The lava engulfed the car and the mailbox, which Mr. Hale’s daughter had fashioned into a facsimile of R2-D2, the “Star Wars” droid.
The videographer, Brendan Clement, had the footage, including a time-lapse video that was widely seen, shared in posts on his Facebook page of weather videos. The footage gave viewers around the world an up-close glimpse of the molten threat posed to two communities on the island’s eastern edge.
By Wednesday morning in Hawaii, the eruptions at Leilani Estates appeared to have paused for the time being except for some gas emissions and spattering lava, said Tina Neal, a scientist of the United States Geological Survey’s Hawaiian Volcano Observatory.
Since Thursday, 15 fissures have erupted in the area, with lava spreading across 116 acres, according to the authorities, who have also warned of dangerous sulfur dioxide gases.
The observatory said that a large rockfall into a lava lake in the volcano’s crater on Wednesday triggered an explosion that created a column of ash.
In the evacuated communities to the northeast of the crater, 36 structures had been destroyed and at least 26 of those were homes, said Talmadge Magno, the civil defense administrator for the County of Hawaii.
On Wednesday afternoon, Gov. David Y. Ige announced that he had asked President Trump to issue a disaster declaration, which would help officials access resources more easily.
Reached by phone on Tuesday, Mr. Hale, 48, said he was camping in an empty lot he owns in Pahoa, a neighborhood nearby. The mailbox was a bigger loss than the car, he said. It had been a Christmas gift from his 26-year-old daughter, Brittany, a few years ago — a memento of their shared love for the “Star Wars” movies. People would drive by his home, see the mailbox, stop and back up to take pictures.
The lava flow captured on video was blocking his path home when he tried to get back on Sunday. Mr. Hale, who runs a car rental business on the island and owns a rental residence, said it was traumatic to watch plumes of smoke, which he assumed were coming from his home, rise from the other side of the lava wall. He kicked himself for not coming back earlier. Perhaps he could have rescued more — maybe even the collection of “Star Wars” mugs from his kitchen.
But watching the video of the time-lapse later, he said, gave him an odd kind of peace.
“I have respect for the lava and for Pele,” he said, invoking the name of the Hawaiian fire goddess. “She just wanted to come onto the property. I guess it’s just kind of surrendering to nature. Seeing it, I felt like ‘O.K., you have what you have, it’s done.’”