The 1923 Berkeley, California, fire was a

conflagration A conflagration is a large fire in the built environment that spreads via structure to structure ignition due to radiant or convective heat, or ember transmission. Conflagrations often damage human life, animal life, health, and/or property. A c ...

that consumed some 640 structures, including 584 houses in the densely built neighborhoods north of the campus of the

University of California The University of California (UC) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university, research university system in the U.S. state of California. Headquartered in Oakland, California, Oakland, the system is co ...

Berkeley, California Berkeley ( ) is a city on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay in northern Alameda County, California, United States. It is named after the 18th-century Anglo-Irish bishop and philosopher George Berkeley. It borders the cities of Oakland, Cali ...

, on September 17, 1923.

Course

Although the exact cause was never determined, the fire began in the undeveloped

chaparral Chaparral ( ) is a shrubland plant plant community, community found primarily in California, southern Oregon, and northern Baja California. It is shaped by a Mediterranean climate (mild wet winters and hot dry summers) and infrequent, high-intens ...

and

grassland A grassland is an area where the vegetation is dominance (ecology), dominated by grasses (Poaceae). However, sedge (Cyperaceae) and rush (Juncaceae) can also be found along with variable proportions of legumes such as clover, and other Herbaceo ...

s of Wildcat Canyon, just east of the ridgeline of the Berkeley Hills, and was propelled over the ridge and southwestward just south of Codornices Creek by a strong, gusty, and intensely dry northeasterly wind. The fire quickly blew up as it swept through the La Loma Park and Northside neighborhoods of Berkeley, overwhelming the capabilities of the Berkeley Fire Department to stop it. The house at 125 Shasta Road was the first to be destroyed in the fire. A number of UC students fought the advance of the fire as it approached the north edge of the University of California campus, at Hearst Avenue. The other edge of the fire was fought by firefighters as it advanced on downtown Berkeley along the east side of Shattuck Avenue north of University Avenue. Firefighters were rushed in from neighboring Oakland, and

San Francisco San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

sent firefighters by

ferry A ferry is a boat or ship that transports passengers, and occasionally vehicles and cargo, across a body of water. A small passenger ferry with multiple stops, like those in Venice, Italy, is sometimes referred to as a water taxi or water bus ...

across the bay. Intersection of Scenic Ave and Virginia St right after the fire

Firefighting efforts were hampered by the inadequacy of water mains in northern Berkeley, where rapid development after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake had outgrown the water supply in the fire area. Firefighters trying to fight the fire connected to hydrants in the area that hissed dry. An additional problem was the predominance of cedar shake (rough shingle) roofs. However, according to Audrey Boyd in ''The Berkeley Fire,'' "rivers of water could have been poured into that blaze without deterring it." The strong and dry wind lifted burning shakes off burning houses and quickly spread the fire. The fire was halted only when the northeasterly winds died down and were replaced by the cool, humid afternoon sea breeze. The fire lines were established at Hearst and Shattuck Avenues, where larger water mains delivered a reliable water supply for firefighting. The total loss was estimated at $10,000,000 by the National Board of Fire Underwriters.

Aftermath

Building styles in North Berkeley changed dramatically after the 1923 fire, with stucco and tile roof homes largely, but not entirely, replacing the wood-sided and cedar-shaked construction styles popularized by the Berkeley Hillside Club before the fire. As a belated result of the fire, the City of Berkeley constructed a fire station in the hills at 2931 Shasta Road (at Queens Road) just below Grizzly Peak Blvd, in 1948.City Council Minutes, Aug.26, 1947 In the early 2000s, this station was replaced and relocated to a nearby site just above Grizzly Peak Blvd. at 3000 Shasta Road,Berkeley Fire Department Stations
/ref> on the interface between the residential area and Tilden Regional Park, very close to the putative origin of the 1923 fire.

References

Citations

Bibliography

* ''Report on the Berkeley, California Conflagration of September 17, 1923'', National Board of Fire Underwriters' Committee on Fire Prevention and Engineering Standards. *
The Story of the Berkeley Fire
', unknown date, unknown author. *
The Berkeley Fire
', Aubrey Boyd.

External links

Archived footage of the 1923 fire

* ttps://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1974/09/23/wildfire-berkeley-1923 "Wildfire: Berkeley, 1923". ''The New Yorker''.
"Trailing blazes back: Revisiting the 1923 Berkeley Fire". ''The Daily Californian''. 2017-10-15.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Berkeley fire 1923 fires in the United States 1920s wildfires 20th-century wildfires in the United States Fires in California Berkeley Hills 20th century in Berkeley, California Berkeley Fire, 1923 1923 in California 1923 natural disasters in the United States September 1923 in the United States Wildfires in Alameda County, California