OAKLAND — One week after the Keller Fire, Damon Covington is eager for the after-action review. Much like a football coach after a win, the Oakland fire chief said he knows there are things to improve, aspects that went well that could go better.
He also knows this.
“We dodged a bullet with that one,” Covington said. “It’s like in sports. With any successful endeavor, there’s a little luck. A couple of things go different, and the result is different.”
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One week ago, Covington heard a call at 1:27 p.m. for a grass fire burning off Interstate 580. Six minutes later came a second alarm for reports of a fire into a home.
With that, the race started. The Keller Fire was burning amid homes and forestry — in particular a Eucalyptus grove — and red flag warnings for severe fire conditions. The weather mirrored that of a tragic event almost exactly 33 years earlier.
Over the next four days, Oakland fire crews combined with Cal Fire, Alameda County Fire and 20 other agencies to keep the Keller Fire from becoming an awful sequel to the 1991 Oakland Hills Firestorm. In the end, 15 acres burned, residents from 254 structures were evacuated, one home suffered fire damage and not a single person was injured.
To understand how impressive those numbers are, consider that in October 1991, more than 2.5 square miles of acreage burned; 25 people died and 150 were injured; 3,469 homes and apartment units were destroyed, causing $1.68 billion in property damage in Oakland and Berkeley; and 10,000 people were evacuated.
How did fire crews do it?
“A lot of things went right,” said Corey Reuterglen, a division chief at Alameda County Fire who oversaw the work of the hand crews that Covington said played such a pivotal role. “Starting with the fact that the red flag warning (for severe fire conditions) was in place.”
That warning, Reuterglen said, released allocated funds to fire departments in the state that allows crews to pre-position water tenders, fire engines, and hand crews in perceivably dangerous areas even if not one spark arises.
In this case, it helped keep the spark from becoming an explosion.
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Source:: The Mercury News – Entertainment
