The critical shortage of resources was the major problem for several
hours. As soon as any single or grouped resources would arrive, there
were assignments waiting for them. Command Post personnel were trying
to obtain good information on the fire’s perimeter, trying to predict the
direction the fire would take in order to identify evacuation areas, and
prioritizing requests for assistance that came from several different areas in
rapid succession.
It was difficult to determine resource deployment because so many
units were engaged in actions that were unknown to the Command Post.
They were engaged in different areas, had no radio contact with the
command structure, and were operating on their own initiative.
Efforts were being made to develop an incident command structure
and to build a logistics system to support expanding operations. Division
assignments were being made to supervise operations in particular areas
that could be identified, but there was no information on where many
companies were working, what conditions they were encountering, and
what success they were achieving. One Oakland Captain reported that
when he finally reached the Command Post, after the situation calmed
down in his area, he found out that he had been assigned, hours earlier, as
a Division Supervisor over several other units.
The Battalion Chief who had been assigned to make an aerial
assessment from the police helicopter had to return to the Command Post
to deliver his report. This information led to the conclusion that massive
additional mutual aid resources would be needed to contain or control the
fire. Alameda County resources had already been severely depleted and
Contra Costa County was requesting assistance from other areas to respond
to the fires that had broken out on the opposite side of the hills. San
Francisco was requested to send additional strike teams, but there was a
concern that flying brands would begin to ignite fires in that city on the
opposite side of the bay; the smoke was already banking down and causing
problems in San Francisco. After sending 25 percent of its on-duty forces
to Oakland, San Francisco was calling back off-duty personnel to increase
staffing on its remaining companies. San Francisco was able to send
several special units and additional personnel to Oakland.
With local resources already depleted, the assistance would have to
come from distant locations with extended travel times. The overall
incident strategy was changed to a “campaign approach,” based on
assembling the resources that would be needed to deal with a worst case
scenario.
At 1359 hours, Oakland requested 13 additional strike teams, 6 air
tankers, and 6 helitack units. The ground units were directed to a Staging
Area at Raimondi Park, three miles from the fire, near the Oakland end of
the Bay Bridge. This location provided the space for a full base camp
operation to support the incident and a large open area to service
helicopters. Thirty minutes later Berkeley requested two more strike teams
to respond to the Berkeley High School staging area. This large scale
assistance would take from one to four hours to arrive at the staging areas.
The fire was headed straight for the City of Piedmont, which had
already committed all of its apparatus and personnel to Oakland. All that
was left in Piedmont was a Streets Department street flusher, manned by
one firefighter. Piedmont requested the assignment of strike teams to
protect the city, but none could be allocated until the distant mutual aid
forces could arrive and the most urgent requests could be accommodated.
(A strike team was briefly assigned to cover Piedmont, later in the
afternoon, but it too was soon committed to fighting fires in the Rockridge
district. The Piedmont companies returned to their city around 0100 hours
and stood-by at the perimeter for the remainder of the night.)
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