HILO, Hawai'i — Lava from Kilauea volcano crossed an access road at the end of Highway 130 at about 8 p.m. last night, cutting off a lava viewing site and separating a handful of residents from their homes.

Neil Gyotoku, spokesman for Big Island civil defense, said about five residents were evacuated from the area on Monday, and no one was trapped by the flow.

After threatening the road for days, the lava finally cut the route about 50 yards east of the lava viewing site, he said.

The evacuated residents and the last two residents who still live in the Royal Gardens subdivision will now be able to reach their homes only by traveling on the Chain of Craters Road in Hawaii Volcanoes National Park and going northeast across cooled, older lava fields.

Most of Royal Gardens has been covered already, with the most recent flows burning four or five abandoned structures in the subdivision during the past two weeks, Gyotoku said.

The county built the 2.6-mile road from the end of Highway 130 to the lava viewing site in 2001, and the site was a popular stop for cruise ship passengers who visited the Big Island.

The residents who were evacuated this week had built a cinder road that extended from the turnaround area at the lava viewing site to their properties southeast of Royal Gardens.

Two women who had been living there removed their trailer from the area earlier this week, and another man who was building a structure there left his site behind and returned to his permanent home in Hawaiian Paradise Park, Gyotoku said.

Another person was living in the area in a "tent-like structure," he said.

Over the weekend a lava tube system developed that carried lava to a relatively level area near the lower portion of Royal Gardens, and the lava then veered to the southeast toward the lava viewing area.

County and state crews have been working during the day to cut a new road to a new lava viewing site in a safe spot, civil defense officials said. That would also protect property owners in the area from trespassers, civil defense officials said.

County officials hope to have the lava viewing site open by this weekend, but until then the area has been closed at the end of Highway 130.

"People have been sneaking in at night," Gyotoku said. "We don't have the manpower or personnel to secure an area like that."

Reach Kevin Dayton at kdayton@honoluluadvertiser.com.