Santana Row Development Fire (San Jose, California - August 2002) » Secondary Fires

Flying embers carried aloft by winds generated by the convective currents of the fire at Santana Row ignited a number of fires downwind from the building of origin. The largest concentration of fires was along Moorpark Avenue. One of the most seriously damaged areas was Moorpark Village, which consists of fourteen townhouses located in three buildings in the 2900 block of Moorpark Avenue. The buildings are two-story wood-frame units that were built during the late 1970’s with wood siding on the ground level, stucco on the second story, and wood shake roofs. The largest of the buildings contains seven units and has a footprint of 7,500 square feet. A second building contains four units with a footprint of 3,500 square feet and the third building contains three units and is slightly smaller.

Moorpark Gardens is an apartment complex located at 2966 Moorpark Avenue. The complex was constructed about 1970 and contains sixty-eight apartments distributed in nine buildings with a stucco exterior. Some of the buildings had wood shakes and some had been re-roofed with composition. All of the buildings in the complex that sustained fire damage had wood shake roofs.

Access to both complexes was limited and none of the buildings were sprinklered. The primary source of ignition was the firebrands from the wooden shake roofs. Buildings with composition roof covering largely escaped the conflagration.

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