A Reflection by Fr. Brian (the firestorm of Oakland, CA):
(continued from May 25th)
The Oakland/Berkeley Hills Firestorm of 1991 was a real disaster and I had just started at St. Joseph/Notre Dame High School in Alameda, CA, just down the road from Oakland and Berkeley.
I remember it was a Sunday and I was in my room in the Rectory at St. Joseph’s Basilica. I just happened to look out my window facing the north to see a huge ribbon of black smoke drifting out over the San Francisco Bay from the Oakland Hills. I immediately turned on the TV to see scenes of people fleeing their homes and running for their lives as the firestorm barreled down the Oakland and Berkeley Hills. It lasted all through the night and by the next day had left 3,000 homes burned to the ground.
It just so happened that I had been up in the Berkeley Hills the morning the fire started doing some running. I did notice a strong dry Santa Ana/Diablo wind blowing across the ridge. I may even have been near the place where the fire started.
The scenes of people fleeing for their lives that night on the news as the fire jumped from house to house as it made its way down the hills was like looking at hell. It was frightening. I looked out my window of the rectory that night towards the hills and I watched in amazement as the orange glow of flames lit up the night sky.
The next morning I drove up into the hills to see what looked like Hiroshima or Nagasaki after the A-bombs hit. Not one house stood. They had all been burned down to their foundations. It was an awful scene, hillside after hillside after hillside, all burned down to the ground. There was nothing left but ash.
The Principal of our Grade School at the parish lost his home to the fire as did thousands more.
But, I also saw the myriads of people who came to help recover the lives of those who had lost their homes and belongings and even some of their family and friends to the fire.
Tomorrow, I will relate my experience of another wildfire in Southern California that I experienced first-hand.