On Friday, Oct. 18, 2024, the Berkeley Fire Department (BFD) issued an evacuation recommendation for a large portion of Berkeley residents, mostly for homes in and near the Berkeley Hills. While there was no active wildfire in Berkeley, high winds and low humidity prompted the evacuation recommendation, as the fire department cited “extreme fire weather.”
That same Friday, a wildfire, later named the Keller Fire, started in the Oakland Hills around 2:25 p.m. The fire started by Interstate I-580 and Keller Avenue, near the Oakland Zoo. Two houses were damaged in the fire, which spread across 15 acres, endangering other homes and causing approximately 500 people to evacuate. The fire was active for two days, being 100 percent contained by 12:47 p.m. on Sunday, Oct. 20, 2024. The cause of the fire is still under investigation.
As the Keller fire spread, more Oakland area codes were ordered to evacuate, going from a recommended evacuation to a mandatory evacuation.
“I actually did not get an evacuation alert on my phone until I was already home,” Melissa Jimenez said, a Berkeley International High School World Literature teacher at Berkeley High School, who lives near the Keller Fire, “My zone was recommended but not required at that time while I was driving home. By the time I got home, there were police stationed over the entire neighborhood, over the entrances and exits, on every street. They were going door to door, yelling at people to evacuate, for the mandatory evacuation ... It was very stressful. My primary concern was wanting to not wait too long because I knew there weren’t a whole lot of roads or evacuation pathways from my neighborhood … I didn’t want to get stuck in a situation where the fire was coming, and we couldn’t get out.”
According to Berkeleyside, “The Berkeley Fire Department declared a state of ‘extreme fire weather’ from eight p.m. Friday until seven a.m. Saturday, recommending anyone in the Berkeley Hills preemptively evacuate their homes and head downhill before that eight p.m. start time.”
The Oakland Police Department also encouraged people to evacuate if they were near evacuation zones. Many of the people who lived outside the evacuation zones did not get notices for evacuations on their phones.
“The police came at around three p.m. They had a car with a megaphone warning everyone to evacuate, or at least be ready to evacuate,” said Athena Tarnas, a junior at College Preparatory School who lives in the Sequoyah neighborhood in Oakland, right outside where the evacuation zone had been, “We planned on evacuating to my grandparent’s house, which is in Oakland but out of the range of the fire. We were lucky the fire never got too bad that we had real concern and cause to evacuate. I’m really grateful that our house is safe, and I feel for those who lost their homes. Some people in my neighborhood packed up and left, while others didn’t mind the warnings at all.”
While most people near the fire in Oakland evacuated, many Berkeley residents who were relatively far from the fire did not evacuate, even if they got an evacuation recommendation. Evacuating during a state of “Extreme Fire Weather” is not mandatory, as it does not necessarily mean a wildfire is active in the area.
“The (BFD) declares “Extreme Fire Weather”—a Berkeley-specific designation—when forecasted wind speeds and humidity levels during a Red Flag Warning would produce especially risky conditions in Berkeley,” stated the BFD on BerkeleyCa.gov. “Fires that spread under Extreme Fire Weather conditions can quickly become catastrophic. The BFD recommends that residents make plans to leave the hills during periods of Extreme Fire Weather. Extreme Fire Weather is far more rare than Red Flag Warnings. In 2020, Berkeley had 25 days of Red Flag Warnings and only two days of Extreme Fire Weather. Yet this narrow range of weather conditions is when the most destructive fires happen,” the BFD on BerkeleyCa.gov said.