MAKUA MILITARY RESERVATION, Hawaii, Aug. 3 — After setting a brush fire that burned out of control late last month and scorched half of this artillery and infantry training range, on land considered sacred by many Hawaiians, the Army says a blessing of sorts has emerged. The fire exposed about two dozen previously unknown cultural sites here that experts say will add to the knowledge of Hawaiian life in the centuries before Europeans arrived.

But many Native Hawaiians are not impressed. They say the new archaeological discoveries cannot salve their despair at what they deem the fire's desecration of Makua Valley, whose very name means "parents," and that some consider the birthplace of their earliest ancestors.

Some say that the fire proves the Army, an occupant of the valley for eight decades, is an incompetent steward of it, and that the new discovery of cultural sites, on adjoining land also covered by the reservation, only bolsters what they have said all along: that the valley is a sacred place and the military should vacate it and the surrounding area.

Makua Valley sweeps lavishly from the sea to the top of the Waianae Mountains on Oahu's western coast, the breathtaking setting of a Hawaiian creation myth as well as a prime live-ammunition training area for the Army.

On July 22, the Army set what was to be a controlled brush fire here, to facilitate the cleanup of unexploded ordnance and help locate cultural relics in the valley's danger zone. But the wind shifted suddenly and picked up speed, whipping what was to be a 900-acre burn into a blaze that spread across 2,100 acres, said Gayland Enriques, deputy fire chief for the United States Army Garrison-Hawaii.

In engulfing parts of the reservation not intended to burn, the fire jumped a highway to scorch the beach, where grass clumps now sit charred and pointy succulents droop like melted glass. Damage was done as well to the habitat of a host of endangered or threatened plant and animal species. The fire burned about 4 percent of the state's endangered akoko plant, and some 150 acres considered critical for the elepaio bird. Joel Godfrey, the Army's natural resources program manager here, said the extent of the damage still had to be assessed in consultations with the United States Fish and Wildlife Service.

Yet two days later, when the fire was out, about two dozen shrines, temples, house platforms and elaborate agricultural terraces were revealed, said Dr. Laurie Lucking, cultural resources manager for the Army garrison, increasing by a third the number of known archaeological sites within the reservation. None of the previously known sites were damaged, she said.

"We're starting to get a total picture of this valley with every new revelation," Dr. Lucking said, noting that the sites suggested a complex social and agricultural structure of early Hawaiians here. "This is a major contribution to what they know about themselves."

Before the Europeans arrived in the late 18th century, Hawaiian history was passed down orally, and so many archaeologists say that finding such relics gives the best indication of what life was like then. For instance, the agricultural terraces and home platforms that were found could suggest a society with a permanent labor force, Dr. Lucking said, contrary to accounts of valley life that mention only a fishing village near the sea.

Among those unswayed by the Army's efforts is William Aila Jr., who was born and raised in the area and is a member of Hui Malama O Makua, a group formed to oppose the military presence in the valley.

"The fact that they're finding additional sites reinforces our responsibility to care for this land in a nondestructive way," he said. "It shows there are more appropriate places for them to train."

Makua Valley, where the Army first placed howitzers in the 1920's, is now the only live-fire training area on Oahu that can accommodate units of at least company size. For decades, the Army and other services bombed, shot at and otherwise trained in the valley with little interference. But in recent years, calls for the military to leave Makua have escalated, and fire has often been the catalyst.

An earlier controlled burn that went awry, in 1995, charred 2,600 acres of the 4,190-acre reservation. In September 1998, after a series of fires ignited by ammunition, the Army voluntarily suspended training. Lawsuits by a community group and the advocacy organization Earthjustice Legal Defense Fund kept training from resuming until a settlement was reached after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Under the agreement, the Army has until October 2004 to complete an environmental impact statement that details how the training affects the valley; in the meantime, it can conduct only limited exercises.

Over the weekend, more than 100 civilians came to the reservation to hear a briefing by the military about the latest fire. Dressed in mourning garments, some Native Hawaiians stood outside the gates wailing "Auwe!" — a cry of despair — before proceeding to a rock altar inside the reservation where they made offerings of a ceremonial seaweed, called limu kala, to ask the valley's forgiveness. A slim plume of smoke like the stream from a cigarette unfurled from the patchwork of char behind them.