In a column on the area’s history for the news website Honolulu Civil Beat, Alan D. McNarie said the risks since then have only become more apparent. “The odds may be considerably worse than Dr. MacDonald predicted back in 1960,” Mr. McNarie said. Citing figures from the United States Geological Survey, he noted that about 40 square miles of the island were buried in fresh lava between 1983 and 2003 alone.

For many of those who continued to buy homes, the lure continued to be cheap housing in a tropical wonderland.

Hawaii has what may be the highest statewide home prices in the United States, with the median home value in the state at about $605,000, according to the housing website Zillow. And while the unemployment rate is low at around 2 percent, that figure obscures other problems. Hawaii had the highest cost of living of any state in 2017, according to the Center for Regional Economic Competitiveness, driven largely by housing prices. Zoning restrictions in parts of the archipelago and the use of private residences as vacation rentals constrict available affordable housing even further.

The result: Even though Hawaii’s economy seems to be strong, wage increases have trailed the climb in home prices, fueling an exodus of people from the state. For some who don’t want to leave, or for mainlanders seeking to move to Hawaii, the far-flung areas of the Big Island hold allure.

“We’re 40,000 housing units from anywhere near adequate to easing the need for places for people to live in Hawaii,” said Carl Bonham, an economist at the University of Hawaii. “That’s why Puna is an option no matter its remoteness or risks.”

Many homes in Puna are not built to code, or are built in zones where lava flows have already wiped out previous developments, which some residents attribute to the frontier mind-set here. Others, however, contend that public officials have not enforced existing regulations as strictly as they could have.