I lived in Oakland at the time of this fire, it came out of nowhere and wouldn’t go out
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That was extremely hard to watch. We went shopping for fabric that Sunday at my household. I needed fabric trim for my SCA (Middle Ages club) tunic. While in the shop, the lights started going on and off, the sky turned black, and the cars started to speed down the street beside us. After five minutes in line, I kept saying, “We need to get out of here.” We left and ended up in a traffic jam, fleeing the hills (we were at the bottom). I turned around and saw an entire mountain shape (hill) go in flames like a candle on the cake! The entire thing. Remember a science fiction book set in Oakland that I read during childhood? I screamed, “Oh my God, the Hills are on Fire! Quick, head to the bridge!”
The driver instead turned onto our group house at the bottom of the hills. I saw smoke overhead and suggested we wet down the roof, but a housemate said, “You are exaggerating.” We went inside, turned on the TV, and the fire w
We survived, and even the former house I lived in survived, but the houses two doors down from it on El Camino Real were gone. As for causes, well, I had worked overtime the day before, and while waiting for the bus, I remember thinking, this is the sort of nasty warm and windy weather that tends to bring fires in its wake. That was about the time the thing started. Fires and storms do very strange things on their own. This one could have had help. I’m sure the Lahina fire did, but I don’t know about this one.
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I was active-duty military in the South Bay at the time. I went on my one and only bicycle ride in The City (San Francisco) with three friends that day, heading to Sausalito. At some point early in the ride (blue line on map below) we saw smoke billowing in the east. I thought it was a bad fire on the Treasure Island (yellow circle) Naval Station, as the smoke was too dense and the plume too high to be from farther away.
As travelled along the Marina and got closer to the bridge (Golden Gate), we realized that the Oakland Hills were on fire and houses were burning. The wind direction seemed unusual as the smoke was blown west, directly overhead, as we crossed the bridge. It was an otherwise clear day, and I marveled that our shadows were orange from the hazy sunshine.
It was only when we were having dinner in Sausalito that we learned what was going on across the bay. My three friends all lived in Concord and Martinez and had to detour down to Castro Valley to get home as the Caldecott tunnel was closed.
We can only speculate as to whether this was an early DEW-propagated wildfire and/or manipulated weather. Some of the white ash damage in the posted video suggests added heat, but it is hard to say.
@Melodi and @SteveJinks
I only watched from a great distance in safety. We were horrified watching the news on the bar TV where we were eating. Watching it firsthand is not the same as living it firsthand.
IMO, it was the first of what would become normal wildfire behavior after the 2017 Tubbs Fire in Santa Rosa.
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