"I've never seen active lava like this."

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In this photo provided by the National Park Service lava spews from the Kilauea volcano in Hawaii, Wednesday, June 7, 2023. (Janice Wei/National Park Service via AP)

Fountains of lava shot up from the floor of Halemaumau, some as high as 200 feet into the air. The USGS says the amount of lava coming out is more than what we saw with the last eruption earlier this year. Visitors are simply enjoying the show.

HAWAII COUNTY, Hawaii (KITV4) -- If you are making your way to Volcanoes National Park, we have a few tips: especially at night, bring a flashlight. Don't dress in short sleeves. After all, it can get kind of chilly out on the overlook.

Most importantly, stay on designated trails and enjoy the site at a distance. These reminders come as a steady stream of visitors flocked to Volcanoes National Park to see the Kilauea eruption for themselves.

Andrew Richard Hara of Paradise Helicopters was one of the first on Wednesday morning to capture the lava lake -- which now covers 371 acres and counting -- of the Halema'uma'u crater floor.

"What stands out in this eruption is that I've never seen active lava completely cover the the bottom of the crater before."

"Where I live, we started feeling the earthquakes. And the house was shaking and rattling and the alarms kept going off." - David Phillips, USGS

"So there's a lot of spatter going in the air, things are moving really quickly," says Hara. "You see gas kind of coming up from the ground. We even got to see a vortex, which is heat that's rising, but it creates this cone. And so it was whipping the dirt and the heat into the air."

As Kilauea went quiet in March, USGS has since been studying the volcano closely with highly sensitive monitoring equipment, creating a network focused on the frequency of quakes beneath the crater.

"Before 8 o'clock, we got one of these seismic swarm alarms, which meant there were a lot of small earthquakes happening here beneath Hale Ma'uma'u," says David Phillips, of USGS. "In the morning, all of a sudden, we were getting more alarms and more alarms. And all of a sudden, where I live, we started feeling the earthquakes. And the house was shaking and rattling and the alarms kept going off."

With the eruption confined to the caldera, there is no danger to person or property. Nevertheless, the park warns visitors nevertheless to be aware of hazard warnings.

"The plume you see contains sulfur dioxide, or SO2, in addition to water vapors and CO2 and things like that," says Jessica Ferracane, National Parks. "The SO2 is the primary concern. And it can be fatal if you breathe that in. In addition to the SO2, there's also particulates in it, little pieces of lava like Pele's hair that are stretched out thin, shards of glass basically, if you breathe that in it's like fiberglass and other particulates. So definitely an area you want to avoid. Luckily we have great trade wind weather right now, but that could change. That plume could come over where we are now and usually when that happens we'll temporarily close an area or wait for the winds to change and just encourage people not to be in that plume cloud. and just encourage people not to be in that plume cloud."

The safest bet: wait for the winds to change, and just encourage people to not be in that plume cloud.

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