Remembering the Oakland Hills Firestorm

Anyone who didn’t go through that event on Oct. 20, 1991 can’t know how traumatic it was for the entire city. The Oakland Hills Firestorm was, at the time, the most destructive urban-wildland fire in American history. Two or three miles of the densely-populated hills went up like a blowtorch. True, the flatlands didn’t burn, but they almost did. I worked that fire as a reporter, and was told by every expert I interviewed that, for long hours at a stretch, it looked like both downtown Oakland and downtown Berkeley were doomed.

The fire, which flared up in the hills above the Caldecott Tunnel on a hot, clear day, was completely out of control on three fronts. To the north, it advanced toward the U.C. Berkeley campus. In the west, it roared along Highway 24 in the direction of North Oakland and the Claremont Resort. In the south, it rushed toward Piedmont and Montclair. Firefighters retreated at least four times as a wall of flame, sometimes 100 feet high, blew over their heads and ignited everything behind them.

From my home in Adams Point, two mere miles away, you could see the enormous smoke plume of the fire, towering thousands of feet into the air like the mushroom cloud of an atomic bomb. The East Bay Hills glowed red and orange at mid-day, like an enormous erupting volcano. Ash covered everything: parked cars, windowsills, sidewalks, awnings. The wind was crazy-fierce. Everywhere throughout the city the screech of sirens split the air: ambulances, fire vehicles, police cars. Freeways shut down; the streets were oddly empty as everyone sat transfixed before their T.V. screens. KTVU aired hours of live coverage of Hills residents fleeing the inferno.

Downtown Oakland was directly in the blaze’s path. The wind-whipped wall of flame traveled straight down Broadway in the direction of Rockridge, sometimes at sixty miles an hour. Nothing could stop the flames before they reached Lake Merritt, an OFD Battalion Chief told me. As FEMA later reported, “The fire completely overwhelmed the firefighting forces of the area, consuming everything in its path, and was only stopped when the Diablo wind conditions abated. The wind had threatened to drive the fire across the entire city of Oakland.”

Fortunately, there was an earthly force that could and did stop the fire. Around 5 p.m. that Sunday, as FEMA noted, the wind abruptly shifted. After blowing at gale force from east to west—the dreaded Diablos—the wind switched to onshore, sending the flames into retreat, back over lands they already had consumed. Finally, the thousands of firefighters recruited from all over the West were able to get a handle on the conflagration. I talked to two of them shortly afterward. One recalled how, when the fire first broke out and he was called in for duty, he’d told his wife he’d be home “in a few hours” for “Plan A”: to watch the 49ers over some cold beer. Instead, it was four days before he saw her again. Another firefighter told me how, after battling the flames all day, as the fog crept in and a nighttime chill descended, he crawled up onto the hood of his fire truck, still warm from the engine, and passed out in sheer exhaustion. Someone—he never knew who—covered him with a blanket.

That’s when I developed my admiration and respect for firefighters, and also for cops. Men and women who don the uniform, to save us from that which would harm us. Individuals who are sworn to protect the public. To them, it’s not just a job, with a salary and benefits, it’s a calling. They take it seriously but, in the case of cops, all too seldom are they granted the respect their profession ought to earn them. Yes, our public officials give lip service to cops. Sheng Thao is out there, telling us in every interview how wonderful and fantastic our cops are. The only problem is that this is the same Thao who for years tried to weaken if not destroy the Oakland Police Department. Back when “defund the police” was the rallying cry of the lunatic left, and it looked like they were winning the public relations fight, Thao chose to ally with some of the most despicable politicians Oakland has ever produced—Nikki Bas, Carroll Fife and Rebecca Kaplan, all of them racialist crypto-Communists who wished to starve OPD to the point of vanquishment. The rhetoric those people uttered was shameful. What they tried to do was almost treasonous. Little wonder Thao has developed a case of selective amnesia when it comes to recalling her repellent past behavior. Nothing to see here, folks! But we, the voters and residents of Oakland who bore witness to her shameful rise to power, will never forget or forgive.

If I had one last wish, on my death bed, it would be that Oaklanders recover their senses and support the cops. In fact, my demise may not be far off: cancer, I’m afraid, has come. But until I can no longer peck out words on my laptop, I’ll continue to write this blog, exposing the follies and dangers of the far left, warning of the dire consequences if we fail to stop their cultural war on us, and hoping (against hope?) that Oakland voters will have the wisdom to see through the veil of propaganda that has blinded them in the past. I sincerely hope voters will reject the most woke candidates (Nikki Bas, Carroll Fife), but I fervently pray they’ll vote to recall Price and Thao.

Steve Heimoff