O
Oakland Hills fire
The Event One of the most destructive urban
fires in American history
Date October 19-20, 1991
Place Oakland-Berkeley Hills, California
The fire was one of a series of 1990’s events that demon-
strated the vulnerability of California residents to natural
disasters—in this case, an inadequately suppressed grass-
land fire, which reignited the following day and tore
through affluent residential neighborhoods, resulting in de-
struction, death, and injur y.
In 1991, Northern California was suffering from five
years of drought, which meant that the Oakland-
Berkeley Hills were covered with dried vegetation
and the fire risk was extremely high. This was a re-
gion that had experienced previous wildfires, the
most extensive conflagration in 1923 and a smaller
one in 1970. However, despite these earlier events,
fire-resistant building and landscaping practices still
had not been fully implemented in the neighbor-
hoods. Also, in the years since 1970, residential de-
velopment had moved higher into the hills, creating
increased urban-grassland interface areas and esca-
lating challenges for fire-control strategies.
On October 19, 1991, emergency crews sup-
pressed a small brush fire in the Oakland-Berkeley
Hills and left the scene. Unfortunately, windy condi-
tions the following morning fanned the embers, and
the increasing gusts drove the flames into the adja-
cent residential neighborhoods. Firefighting ser-
vices were rapidly mobilized, ultimately deploying
approximately fifteen hundred individuals. It was
soon apparent, however, that the wildfire was too fast
and hot to be controlled and that local residents
needed to be evacuated quickly. The police and
other emergency-response teams moved into action,
but in most locations people had little or no warning
before they had to leave their homes, attempting to
flee with family members, pets, and limited posses-
sions. Some residents, disoriented by smoke, strug-
gling to help others, or with no available path to
safety, never made it out of their community and per-
ished in the fire. Most people managed to escape the
blaze, but many of them lost their pet companions,
their homes, and all their possessions.
The End of the Day By evening on October 20, the
winds lessened and the fire burnt at a reduced feroc-
ity, no longer spreading rapidly. It was completely
suppressed on its third day. The final damage tally
was not calculated until weeks later, but the exten-
sive wildfire had destroyed approximately 1,600 resi-
dential acres, including roughly 3,800 homes and
apartment units. Twenty-five people were killed in
the blaze (including two emergency workers), an-
other 227 individuals required medical treatment,
mostly for smoke-related injuries, and thousands
were left homeless.
Long-Term Effects In the coming months, people
dealt with grief and the psychological challenges of
coping with a disaster of such magnitude. By the end
of November, approximately 3,700 individuals had
accessed counseling and mental health services
through the American Red Cross. Presumably, many
more people obtained mental health assistance on
their own. Emotional difficulties are a common out-
come of a natural disaster. In the case of this fire,
these challenges also contributed to the logistical
and financial difficulties experienced by the Oak-
land-Berkeley population after the catastrophe, in-
cluding finding new accommodations, dealing with
insurance paperwork, replacing necessary items,
and returning to work, educational pursuits, or
other activities.
The unique geographic and cultural context of
the Oakland-Berkeley Hills also resulted in some dis-
tinctive reactions by residents to the disaster. The
area is located on the outskirts of San Francisco, an
eclectic American city, highly supportive of the arts
and diversity in general. The neighborhood popula-
tion is middle class to upper class, fairly well edu-
cated, and numbers high proportions of academics,