Click here if you can’t view the gallery or video in your mobile device.
OAKLAND — The first calls came only a few minutes after sunrise with some details — warehouse, Fruitvale District, multiple alarms, heavy flames — that brought with them awful memories of the deadly Ghost Ship fire.
Hours later, it appeared that the raging fire Friday morning at a warehouse art collective did not leave scars quite as deep.
Nobody lost their life.
“I think we’re extremely fortunate that Oakland firefighters were there so quickly and found a place where they were able to take it on,” Oakland Fire spokesman Chief of Staff Michael Hunt said. “Not only with it being a warehouse, but with it’s location close to Interstate 880 and the way the traffic flows, we’re just lucky that it wasn’t something worse.”
The three-alarm blaze began to roar around 6:20 a.m. at 976 23rd Avenue, near East 11th Street. The warehouse takes up an entire city block and housed 37 businesses, all tied to the art community, Hunt said.
For that reason, it immediately drummed up fears of a repeat of the Ghost Ship warehouse fire, which killed 36 people at a Fruitvale District art collective on Dec. 2, 2016. The Ghost ship site is located less than a mile from Friday’s fire.
Unlike the Ghost Ship, which was zoned as a warehouse, the building that burned Friday is zoned for light industrial and manufacturing uses, Alameda County records show. The building is owned by Moxy LLC, according to state records. The company’s CEO is listed in state records as Jason Lugo.
About 7-10 businesses were lost in the blaze, and others sustained water damage, Batallion Chief James Bowron said.
“It appears that the businesses were tied to the collective, and that they were leasing out space,” Hunt said.
Firefighters received the first alarm around 6:20 a.m., only seven minutes after the sunrise. Station 13, at E. 12th Street and Derby were the first crews to see smoke, and they immediately sounded a second alarm,” Hunt said.
Crews that arrived at the scene found the fire was roaring inside the warehouse and began to attack it from inside. The fire got bigger quickly, though, and fire crews were forced back outside.
“At one point, crews were able to find a courtyard in the middle and they were able to find a spot where they were able to keep the larger two-thirds of the area preserved,” Hunt said. “It was a very quick, aggressive response.”
The fire did not spread to any other buildings in the area, which is a mix of industrial properties and single-family homes near Interstate 880. Fire crews did not order any evacuations.
By 11 a.m., firefighters had fully contained the blaze, two hours after they began releasing more than 50 firefighters who were called to the scene.
“There is no more lateral spread of the fire,” Bowron said at that point. “It’s completely contained to what has already burned.”
Many of the businesses in the art collective involved wood or metal work, fire officials said, and crews were set to remain at the scene until Saturday morning to monitor flare-ups and clean up.
“We’re getting our hands on piles of stuff. Water and foam are being applied,” Bowron said. “There is a lot of a material in there, so there will be some persistent small amounts of smoke. … The smoke is from products and materials inside the building that are still burning.”
The fire initially appeared en route to becoming a spreading inferno.
“It took off,” said Esperanza Corona, a nurse who lives across the street who saw the fire at its start. “It just got huge.”
@OaklandFireLive battle a warehouse #fire ok 11th st and 23rd Ave. Stay tuned for updates @EastBayTimes pic.twitter.com/fIh9qRkuMN
— Ray Chavez (@rayinaction) August 9, 2019
An investigation will be conducted in hopes of determining what caused it.
Check back for updates.
Staff writer Thomas Peele contributed to this story.