East Bay Hills Fire (Oakland-Berkely, CA - October 1991) » Analysis - Fire Risk

The most significant factor that should be recognized from this incident is that the fire was beyond the capability of fire suppression forces to control. The stage was set by a number of contributing factors that created the opportunity for disaster. When the Santa Ana wind condition was added to those risk factors, the combination was more than any fire department could handle. It was remarked by one fire official that if the same fire risk factors had been present in a national park or forest, the area would have been closed to all activities. As long as the wind was present, the fire was going to continue to spread, no matter what strategy and tactics were used and no matter how much equipment and how many firefighters were there to try to stop it. The fire was contained only when the wind changed.

The spread of the fire during the first hour is virtually unprecedented for an urban conflagration, including wildland-urban interface fires. Just 64 minutes after the fire broke out, it was burning in the Rockridge district, more than a mile downwind from the point of origin. This rate of fire spread and the difficult access to the fire area meant that firefighters arriving to combat the fire could not be effective against it, and they were in extreme danger from it.'

The factors that created the extreme fire risk situation in the East Bay Hills are not unique. There are similar situations in many parts of the United States and particularly in the coastal areas of California, which have seen some of the most destructive wildland-urban interface fires over the last 70 years. This incident may be viewed as “the ultimate” interface fire, but there are many reasons to believe that it could easily be repeated or surpassed, unless a major hazard mitigation effort is instituted.

The risks can be significantly reduced in several ways, all of which have been identified and advocated for decades by the fire protection community. There are political and economic reasons why these recommendations have not been implemented. After the fire there were two opposing forces at work in Oakland; those who wanted the hill area rebuilt and restored to its former condition without delay and those who wanted to wait until the risk factors could be mitigated before allowing any rebuilding. There was also a deluge of litigation relating to lost lives and property, claiming that various public and private entities were negligent in their responsibility to prevent or control the destruction.

Without risk mitigation efforts, the same area could easily become vulnerable to another disastrous fire. The adjacent areas, which were spared in this event, are equally vulnerable, as are dozens of areas in California and other parts of the country with similar characteristics.

The lesson from this fire should not be that public fire protection forces were unable to control it. The more important lesson is that the risks were recognized and the consequences were accurately predicted long before the fire, but nothing was done to mitigate the risks before the fire occurred.

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