Oakland Hills Firestorm

April 14, 2006 9:24 PM

October 20, 1991 - the Oakland Hills weathered a massive firestorm, destroying almost 2,500 homes and taking 25 lives. For many years, it remained the biggest urban disaster in US history.
posted by drstein (28 comments total)

You mean.. until the "Tragic Events of September the 11th, 2001?"

(I do hate that moniker... and sorry for threadjacking)
posted by Debaser626 at 9:29 PM on April 14, 2006

I remember the slow, traffic-dense drive to the top of Twin Peaks in the dark to park and stand at the wall with hundreds of other San Franciscans to peer across the bay, watching Oakland burn and burn.

My husband (who I met years later) lived in the Oakland hills, and had to literally run from the fast-moving firestorm.
posted by Dunvegan at 9:38 PM on April 14, 2006

Look, I was about fifty miles from that when it happened, it it was NOT a 'firestorm'. That's such crap! It was just a big fire, and the media hyped it up.

A firestorm _sucks people into it_. They make a tower of flame that goes something like a half-mile into the sky. They make their own weather patterns. They destroy entire cities, and kill tens of thousands of people.

Look up 'dresden firestorm' if you want to know what one REALLY is, and call the Oakland Hills Fire what it was...JUST A FIRE.

Dunvegan: if it was a firestorm, yoiur husband wouldn't have been ABLE to run from it, it would have sucked him in.
posted by Malor at 10:15 PM on April 14, 2006

It can't be in deaths ... the biggest there is still the Galveston Hurricane. And Hurricane Andrew was only the next year with $26 billion in damage. Oakland "disaster boosterism" aside, it's clearly one of the worst urban firestorms in US history, after of course Chicago and the all-but-forgotten Peshtigo, but otherwise it just isn't that epic a deal.

The TV movie about it particularly sucked. Lots of sitcom actors looking offscreen, then a cut to file footage ...
posted by dhartung at 10:18 PM on April 14, 2006

Malor: I was 15 miles from where it happened, and it fit the description of "firestorm" to me.

And this may as well be an entire city.

Geez, dude, relax. I just thought it was an interesting and well-rounded link to post on a Friday night. ;-)
posted by drstein at 10:21 PM on April 14, 2006

I was working in San Francisco that day. Ash fell from the sky like snow. 3 co-workers lost their homes in the blaze.
posted by Argyle at 10:21 PM on April 14, 2006

Malor: The Oakland Hills fire, as many other wildland/urban interface fires, developed firestorm conditions. Within 15 minutes of ignition of the first structure, the fire developed into at least one and possibly two firestorms.

A firestorm is defined as one fed by inrushing winds, but I don't think there's a requirement that they be strong enough to transport a human.
posted by dhartung at 10:26 PM on April 14, 2006

Wow, such passion. And so quickly. i never would have thought that Howie Long could affect people this way.


[Ok, i admit the snarkiness isn't appropriate for a situation where people were in harms way, but i live in Wisconsin where the worst we have to worry about is shitty (arctic-subtropical) weather and mosquitoes that can bring the love that the West Nile Virus.]

/And suddenly i wonder, why the hell do i live in this crappy state?
posted by quin at 11:05 PM on April 14, 2006

crud...

/that IS the West Nile Virus...
posted by quin at 11:07 PM on April 14, 2006

today, i live in the fire area and there are still empty lots. in '91 when this happened, i was a student at cal and was away at the california airshow in salinas that day. my friend and i were pretty worried that our northside berkeley houses had burned down, but the fire was contained before it spread that far north. we heard on the radio about the fire, but had no idea what had really gone on until we came home that night.

in the weeks after the fire, i drove around the fire area and took pictures. i have them around here somewhere... it was insane.

down at the rockridge bart station there is a tile wall memorial with all the names of the people that were killed that day.
posted by joeblough at 11:45 PM on April 14, 2006

A review from quin's IMDb link:

But of course, the real attraction is the awesome special FX found in this movie. The pyrotechniques were unbelieveable, as if the whole forest backdrop was indeed ablaze! The huge looked terrifying, as if the viewer can feel the heat going to engulf the whole television set!

The pyrotechniques! And the HUGE! OMG! Sorry. Pointing out bad writing in IMDb reviews is pretty... uh... pointless. But this one struck me as particularly noteworthy.
posted by brundlefly at 1:55 AM on April 15, 2006

I had just started grad school at Berkeley, and when I came out of my apartment that morning, I saw that the entire southern sky was totally black.

Being from the Midwest, I thought there was a big storm coming, so I went back inside to fetch my umbrella.
posted by starkeffect at 3:17 AM on April 15, 2006

biggest urban disaster? chicago fire? san francisco earthquake? hello?
posted by quonsar at 4:11 AM on April 15, 2006

I too drove around the area shortly after the fire (and have pix somewhere). It felt like being in a war zone.
posted by laz-e-boy at 4:40 AM on April 15, 2006

I recall playing a pre-built scenario of the Oakland Hills fire in SimCity 2000 (not sure if it came with the game or was made by a player) You couldn't click to plant firemen fast enough.
posted by Thorzdad at 5:08 AM on April 15, 2006

For many the biggest disaster in US history was the warehousing of low income people in Chicago Public Housing ghettoes. Oh, you mean natural disaster. But even this Oakland Hills firestorm was not entirely natural. That is, the fires that regularly renew forests are to be expected. Homes in their path, built by humans who seek to dominate nature seem always surprised when nature does what nature does.

I do have compassion and understanding for the loss, just fail to get caught up in sensationalism, when the disasters we perpetrate on ourselves are much greater than nature can come up with.
posted by beelzbubba at 5:24 AM on April 15, 2006

All these years I've been certain that the media was being sensationalistic in its coverage... calling it a firestorm when it wasn't. Turns out I was wrong, apparently; that's a hard one to let go of.

Even if they DID use the right words, I still think it was massively overhyped; yes, it did a lot of damage, and 25 lives lost is certainly a tragedy. But when you look back at Dresden and Hamburg, and as other posters here are mentioning, the Great Chicago Fire and the San Francisco Earthquake and Fire.... the Oakland Hills Fire just didn't seem worth the intense media attention it got. It was All Fire, All The Time.

Of course, the hype in any kind of disaster is a hundred times worse, lo these fifteen years later. By modern standards, that was responsible journalism. *sigh*.

A good FPP, btw. It IS worth remembering.
posted by Malor at 5:35 AM on April 15, 2006

down at the rockridge bart station
Rock Ridge is the nsme of the town in Blazing Saddles. Whenever I hear "Rock Ridge" I expect Slim Pickens to come a-ridin' into town, a whampin' and whompin' every livin' thing that moves within an inch of its life. Except the women folks, of course.
posted by kirkaracha at 5:38 AM on April 15, 2006

"disaster boosterism"

This phrase is amazing. I am so going to steal it and use it whenever the opportunity presents itself.
posted by beth at 7:00 AM on April 15, 2006

"You mean.. until the 'Tragic Events of September the 11th, 2001?[" --posted by Debaser626

Actually, Debaser626, I think it's reasonable to posit that hurricane Katrina and the NOLA/Gulf Coast devistation was (and remains) a larger scale urban disaster for "the Big Easy" than the attack on the World Trade Center was for "the Big Apple."
posted by Dunvegan at 8:09 AM on April 15, 2006

I remember standing on Tank Hill, here in the Upper Haight (all the way across the bay from Oakland, for you non-Bay Areans -- the equivalent of Park Slope Brooklyn vs. downtown Manhattan), and watching smoking shingles spiral down out of the sky all around me. It was a big fire.
posted by digaman at 8:59 AM on April 15, 2006

How about Southern California's 2003 fires?
I recall that breathing was an absolute nightmare for a few weeks.
posted by BuddhaInABucket at 9:51 AM on April 15, 2006

I was in the Lower Haight- the sky was such a strange color, like I've never seen here before or since. Like dusk in the middle of the day.
posted by obloquy at 9:55 AM on April 15, 2006

I awoke to a seemingly beautiful warm October day, but soon after getting up smelled something burning. We went up on the roof of our Oakland home and saw the fire that had started in the hills above, and over the course of the day watched it spread across the hillside, and wondered if it might jump two freeways and make it down to us.

Anthrax and Public Enemy were scheduled to play the Kaiser Auditorium that night, and they never cancelled it. I had tickets, so I went. As I made my way to the concert, cars laden with peoples possessions were streaming out of the hills. During the concert one could look out the open doors and see the hills burning across the lake.

It was a strange day. Aside from the loss of peoples homes and belongings, it ended up being an enormous architectural disaster. The houses that were rebuilt on the sites of destroyed homes are generally ugly and oversized for their locations.
posted by bephillips at 10:38 AM on April 15, 2006

I think San Francisco 1906, inflation-adjusted, was far, far worse than Oakland Hills.

I tend to put Oakland Hills on the same level of the 1999 Oklahoma City F5 tornado. In 30 minutes nearly 1800 homes were destroyed, 6500+ damaged. Most of the 46 fatalities from the supercell's tornadoes occurred from the F5. Only foundations remained of entire subdivisions. Here's some damage shots.

Of course, Oklahoma City is in podunkia, where the Oakland Hills fire was in view of The City, so it never got all that much press.
posted by dw at 10:42 AM on April 15, 2006

I helped moved some friends out of their (rental) house up in the Berkeley hills a few months before the fire. Going back all that was left was the foundation. Pretty weird. A nice reminder about the fickleness of fate.
posted by dopeypanda at 2:14 PM on April 15, 2006

Like all disasters- rank 'em however you like- the story lies not just in the event but in the long-term consequences- particularly the forces and choices involved in rebuilding. The best analysis I've come across of the fire and its aftermath is David Kirp's "There Goes the Neighborhood: After the Berkeley Fire, an Architectural Disaster" from Harper's (3.1.1997- sadly available online only for a price via HighBeam).
posted by foxy_hedgehog at 2:28 PM on April 15, 2006

Yes, I'm a classist pig but at the time all the sympathic close ups of distressed refugees with $150 haircuts drinking their lattes in their Volvos made me laugh.

I spent the time moving my mom into Berkeley and evacuating my carless friends' valuables out of the Oakland hills. I don't remember anything too profound.

And I agree with Malor; it was just a great big fire. I'm guessing it only qualifies as big because it was SORT OF urban, though not exactly a concrete jungle.

How big was that Yosemite one? And those desert fires that happen so often that no one bothers to fight them? And last year's San Diego one? And those are just in California.

I'm sympathetic the way I'm sympathic to people in mobile homes who live in the path of tornados- it sucks, but what do you expect? Except a lot of the people in Oakland had a ton of money (there's that classism again). They allowed the Eucalyptus to get out of hand so that their property would look prettier- despite many many warnings to clean up the leaf litter and thin out the trees. So- not much sympathy at all.

And don't EVEN get me started about how stupid it was to let this particular Eucalyp get established here. If we had still had Redwood trees ... well, nevermind.
posted by small_ruminant at 9:30 PM on April 15, 2006