Fire in Oakland Hills Prompts Evacuations Under Gusty Conditions

A brush fire erupted in Oakland, Calif., on Friday, forcing the evacuation of hillside neighborhoods and the brief closure of a major highway as high winds threatened to spread the blaze.

The five-alarm fire, which officials have named the Keller fire, had burned about 15 acres and damaged two homes in an Oakland Hills area, the Oakland Fire Department said. It came one day before the 33rd anniversary of the 1991 Tunnel fire, which killed 25 people and destroyed 3,000 homes several miles north of the current blaze.

More than two hours after the fire was first reported, officials began to express confidence that they were getting a handle on the situation. There were no reports of injuries, and Oakland Fire Department officials said that the forward progress of the wind-driven fire had been stopped.

Images shared by fire officials showed aircraft flying through billowing smoke, dousing the hillside below as a fire engine fixed its hose on a home.

“If air resources don’t get here as quickly as they did, we might have a different report right now,” Damon Covington, the Oakland fire chief, said at a news conference.

The area has some of the East Bay’s most desirable homes, with those near the top of the Oakland Hills peering over the San Francisco Bay with views of city skylines. But the 1991 blaze also looms in the memories of longtime residents as a deadly threat, especially in an era of climate change that has included some of the most destructive wildfires in California history.