The East Bay Hills could be described as an extreme example of a
wildland-urban interface zone, where the fuel supply was an intimate
mixture of natural trees, brush, and grass surrounding man-made structures
and vehicles. The complete intermingling of the natural and man-made
fuels, combined with the steep terrain, created a combination that was
more hazardous than either urban or wildland fuels alone. Hundreds of
homes were completely enveloped in an extremely flammable environment.
The natural fuels provided a continuous fuel blanket to carry the fire
across the hillsides.
The fire differs from many previous interface fires in that it
originated within a developed area. Most of the major interface fires have
originated in more remote wildland areas and grown to major proportions before attacking urbanized areas. This fire originated within a few
hundred feet of occupied homes and involved structures in the first 10 to
15 minutes, in spite of the fact that firefighters were present when it broke
out.
There was no time or space to attack the fire before it involved the
urbanized area and no time to establish a defensive barrier ahead of the
fire. The combination of wind and thermal forces turned water streams
away when they were directed on the fire, forcing the firefighters to
abandon any early attack strategies and concentrate on evacuating residents
and themselves from the path of the flames. The fire moved so quickly
and grew so fast that firefighters were in imminent danger trying to
evacuate the residents ahead of the flames.
Next » Analysis - Initial Response
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