But the blob stalled.

The lava eventually burned a house and subsumed part of the cemetery, a road and the garbage dump, but it stopped before reaching the center of town or any major thoroughfares. It came within feet of the mall and the contractor’s house, with its berm, but spared both. The National Guard left in February, and an approximation of normal life under the volcano is returning, even as some students and residents remain displaced. Last Wednesday, the grocery store, the Malama Market, reopened, to the joy of Pahoans.

Still missing are hundreds of pets lost or abandoned as the lava crept close. Some of them wound up at the Rainbow Friends Animal Sanctuary, where cats and chickens now roam a seven-and-a-half-acre property in Keaau, about 15 miles away. The shelter got about 300 calls in September asking it to take in the animals, said Mary Rose Krijgsman, the founder.

As lava along the edges of the flow continues to inch forward, some here say that its movement is guided by the anger of the fire goddess Pele, whose spirit is said to reside in the volcano. Her temper is still palpable in the walls of twisted black rock that rise near the roadway and garbage dump, as well as in the plumes of smoke that occasionally rise from the flow.

“It hurts your breathing,” said Tyler Eoromeo, 15, who feels it most during wrestling practice.

The biggest worry remains whether the lava will reach Route 130, the highway to Hilo, 18 miles away, which has about 43,000 residents and is where many in Puna go to work or shop. Officials are working on alternate routes, but it is unclear how successful they will be. The lava can eventually be cleared or bridged, but workers must first wait for it to stop and cool sufficiently; that process, the timetable and cost are still unknown.