BERKELEY LOSS $9,000,000: 3,000 HOMELESS, 100 INJURED - The San Francisco Examiner, Wednesday, September 19, 1923
100 years ago, almost to the day, a terrible fire wiped out 640 homes in Berkeley:
The 1923 Berkeley, California, fire was a conflagration that consumed some 640 structures, including 584 houses in the densely-built neighborhoods north of the campus of the University of California in Berkeley, California, on September 17, 1923.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1923_Berkeley,_California,_fire
Fires were breaking out all over California. Marin and Sonoma counties were hit hard.
In Marin, a wildfire on September 17 burned from Ignacio through Lucas and Nicasio Valleys, to Woodacre, Lagunitas, and Bolinas Ridge. This happened at the same time as huge fires burned in Sonoma County and in Berkeley, along with 15 other counties in California.
https://www.marinfirehistory.org/1923-wildfires-including-ignacio-to-bolinas-ridge-fairfax.html
Read the front-page news from the September 19, 1923 San Francisco Examiner, below. Some commonalities in this story with what we have today are heat, wind, dry fuel, eucalyptus and other non-native trees and plants, above-ground electrical infrastructure and population density near forested land.
BERKELEY LOSS $9,000,000: 3,000 HOMELESS, 100 INJURED
FOREST FIRES IN 18 COUNTIES UNDER CONTROL
641 HOUSES RAZED
50 BLOCKS SWEPT BY CONFLAGRATION
After thirty sleepless, anxious hours devoted to fighting new outbreaks of fire, finding homes for hundreds of refugees from the burned district and maintaining guard over the ruins of its finest homes, Berkeley last night faced this situation:
1 A total property loss of between $8,000,000 and $10,000,000.
2 A net loss not covered by insurance of approximately $6,000,000.
3 Six hundred and forty-one homes destroyed.
4 A burned area containing two square miles, covering fifty blocks of closely built-up residential district and forty blocks of hillside that held some residences and many magnificent groves of trees.
5 No less than 3,000 persons homeless, among them being 1,200 university students and. 300 families of faculty members, according to official announcement.
6 No verified deaths, though fire fighters report they saw six persons perish in burning houses. A search of all the ruins is now under way in an effort to ascertain the truth of these reports
7 One hundred persons injured, but none seriously.
8 Military guards of soldiers and sailors are patrolling the ruined area with
orders to shoot looters on sight.
Seventeen prowlers were arrested during
the previous night, but no definite proof of looting was obtained.
SOLDIERS, SAILORS PATROL STREETS UNDER CONTROL OF MILITARY
The entire burned area has been turned over by the police to the military with Col. A. J. Eddy commanding. After 5 o'clock last night absolutely no one was allowed in the district without a police escort. Colonel Eddy commands thousands of National Guardsmen, R. O. T. C. troops and 150 sailors from Goat Island.
A military encampment was established on the University campus. The closing of the district was done to prevent looting and further casualties from falling chimneys.
Reports of profiteering in rents, due to demands for homes by refugees, reached City Manager John N. Edy yesterday and instructions were issued to the City Attorney to prosecute profiteers wherever they were discovered.
FIRST PERMIT ISSUED FOR NEW HOME IN DEVASTATED REGION
Insurance companies rushed seventy-five adjusters to Berkeley yesterday and began an immediate check of the losses. C. C. Emslee, president of the Berkeley Board of Fire Underwriters, declared there would be a loss of $10,000,000 in real and personal property and that not more than $1,000,000 was covered by insurance.
"There are 100 companies sharing the insurance loss," declared Emslee, "and claims will be paid promptly."
Building Inspector Robert Grieg and City Assessor Squires went over the ruined district late yesterday afternoon for a careful survey. Grieg announced that actual count showed 641 homes destroyed. Squires fixed the monetary loss at $9,000,000.
Clearing of the ruins and debris begins today, it was announced. Standing chimneys which now constitute a menace to everyone within the area will be dynamited, and broken wires and other wreckage will be carried out. It is to be the signal for a start in reconstruction, said Berkeley officials.
As an indication of how Berkeley will meet the situation came the announcement yesterday that the first permit has been issued for rebuilding of a burned home. The applicant was Prof. Loren N. Price of the German department of the University. He lost a $10,000 house at 1508 Hawthorne Terrace. He will rebuild immediately.
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| Women refugees with a few articles of furniture looking down from the heights above Berkeley upon what was once a district of beautiful and costly homes, now smouldering ruins. |
As the flames died down yesterday the city began taking stock of its disaster. City Manager Jno. N. Edy issued a statement reiterating the assertion of Mayor Frank Stringham that inadequate water supply for the fire fighters was responsible for the spread of the flames. He said that at the very moment the fire started he and a committee of Berkeley business men were conferring with the officials of the East Bay Water Company regarding "ways and means of providing more adequate fire protection." Edy has called in experts engineers to make a survey of the city's fire protection needs.
A recent report of the Fire Underwriters had pointed out the fire danger that existed in Berkeley and on the day of the holocaust Fire Chief Rose had been asked to study that report with a view of meeting the peril, according to Edy.
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| All that is left of the stately "Grecian temple" home of C. C. Boynton at 2800 La Loma avenue. Only the fluted columns of stone withstood the ravages of the fire. The Boynton family had been noted as exponents of esthetic dancing and practiced their art in the "temple." |
It was stated in Berkeley yesterday that the fire would prove a strong argument in the hands of a large group of business men and residents who have been campaigning for Berkeley's incorporation with San Francisco in the use of the Hetch Hetchy water supply.
LOSS OF LIFE IN DISASTER REMAINS UNDETERMINED
Loss of life in the disaster remains undetermined. Frank Berg, Berkeley coroner, with a corps of workers, searched through the ruins all day. They found no bodies and no definite evidence that anybody had been killed.
Reports of fatalities were based entirely upon stories told to the police by persons who claimed to be eyewitnesses of tragedies. Summarized here are those stories:
One man declared to have fallen into the flames from which he was fighting fire at La Loma and Euclid avenues. Police Sergeant Frank D. Swain of Berkeley saw this accident and says he is certain the victim perished.
Two students reported to have fallen through a roof on Walnut street.
Another student said to have sustained a broken neck when he was hit by a falling rafter in a house in which he was rescuing furniture.
Two men said to have been crushed to death when a house collapsed in Vine street.
Three hundred persons have not yet been located by their relatives, but although their names are listed as "missing," the authorities assert that they are somewhere in the city and safe.
Boundaries of the fire-swept areas became definite yesterday.
The fire started in Contra Costa county, just across the hills from Berkeley and reached Berkeley at the head of Tamalpais avenue on the extreme northern boundary of the city.
After working through the brush in a grove of eucalyptus trees the blaze moved down the crest of the hill, vaulted a dozen or more homes on the slope and began its destruction on the fest side of Tamalpais avenue.
From there it widened and was not stopped until it reached within a block of the University on the south and had gone as far as Shattuck avenue on the west.
The burned district is bounded by Vine street on the north, Tamalpais on the east as far south as Cedar, then down Cedar to Euclid, thence down Euclid until Hearst avenue is reached at the northern extremity of the University Campus. Then it goes directly west on Hearst to Walnut street and thence northerly on Walnut to Delaware, where the flames spread along Shattuck avenue to Virginia street and back to Walnut, thence out to Vine street again.
FOREST OF CHIMNEYS TOPS RUINS OF ONCE BEAUTIFUL HOMES
A forest of chimneys stood last night where on Monday there had been the beautiful homes of Cragmont and North Berkeley. At the foot of each chimney lay the ruins burned down to street level; not heaps of timbers and occasional walls still standing, but a clean sweep.
Here and there on the streets were the pitiably small bits of furniture saved by some family. Amazing was the number who had chosen to rescue pianos. There was a piano at every corner.
In Greenwood Terrace the mansion of Warren Gregory still stands. The flames leaped directly over the structure, which was located in a hollow against the hill.
In like manner a score of other palatial homes were saved.
A half dozen farm houses were wiped out, a short distance farther northeast over the hill in the brush and eucalyptus tree fire.
The home of Bernard Maybeck, the designer of the Palace of Fine Arts, at the San Francisco Exposition, was totally destroyed. Directly across the street on the same corner of Buena Vista and LaLoma avenues, two homes, one of Prof. A. C. Lawson of the University, remains unscathed.
CHARRED REMAINS OF AUTOMOBILES STREWN ABOUT BURNED SECTION
A reservoir of the East Bay Water Co., close to the intersection of Shasta and Tamalpais avenue, was unharmed. The mains coming from the hills burst, but a large repair gang was on hand yesterday to prevent any chance of a water shortage in Berkeley. Electric light wires, telephone poles and other service equipment were strewn about the devastated area, as were the charred remains of a hundred or more automobiles.
Late last night two more small fires started up near the Tunnel road back of the Claremont Hotel. Thirty men were sent to fight them. They quickly brought the flames under control, but remained at the scene throughout the night to watch for further outbreaks that might endanger the Claremont District.
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| View looking south toward University of California campus, with burned over Berkeley area in the foreground. In the upper right can be seen the Campanile, with the new stadium now nearing completion, also plainly visible. The blocks laid waste stand out in vivid contrast, with the chimneys, stark and straight, representing all that was left standing of hundreds of homes. In the lower foreground can be seen the boundary of the burned district, with a few houses on the edge, providentially escaping the devastating flames. Photo by Geo. D. Russell. |
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| That same view today, courtsey Google Maps |
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| Picture at right shows Miss Eleanor Ellis and Miss Marion Brandt checking over unclaimed belongings of refugees brought to Stephens Union building on U. C. campus before restoring them to owners. Next to them is Corporal Lee Taylor of the Presidio, on guard duty in burned zone, Berkeley. The group of refugees in front of the army officers' table are getting permits to enter the burned district and visit their property. Mrs. F. P. Brendel (to left) was left with only a vase and a water heater where once had been her home. At extreme left is a boy who ran back and saved his school books. |
TWO FEARED DEAD AS TOWN IS WIPED OUT
Millions in Damage and Many Areas Still Periled in Continuing Sweep of Forest Fires
Families in Remote Sections Homeless and Destitute as Houses, Crops Are Destroyed
The town of Trinity on the Southern Pacific Company's branch line to Santa Rosa was wiped out with the possible loss of two lives in one of the four forest fires which have devastated a large part of Sonoma County, according to a message received here last night from T. F. Rowlands, superintendent of the western division of the Southern Pacific Company. The town consisted of about forty houses.
A score of forest fires were still burning in Northern California yesterday, although their violence had abated and the thousands of firefighters, exhausted by a forty-eight hour battle, were able to pause and count losses and gains.
In the wake of a forest fire visitation unprecedented in the State's history several thousand Californians lost homes, there were many injured and a few died from injuries, while others were reported missing. Property valued at millions of dollars was destroyed, farms, pastures and orchards were devastated. Whole towns were wiped out of existence while others were saved from destruction by a capricious change of wind.
The great gale that swept Northern California for two days died out Monday night and this providential happening is believed to have prevented further tremendous losses.
A toll of damage showed the following towns towns destroyed: Boyes Springs, Sonoma county: El Dorado, El Dorado county; Markham. Sonoma county; Woodacre, Marin county.
TOWNS ESCAPE.
The following towns escaped it seemed by a miracle from the flames: Guerneville, Montesano and Monte Cristo in the Sonoma valley; Colfax in Placer county; Agua Caliente and Fetters Springs, El Verano, Glen Ellen and Vineburg in the Sonoma valley; Ignacio, Novato, and San Geronimo, Lagunitas, Forest Knolls, San Anselmo and Ross in Marin county. Dangerous fires in forest, brush and grass were burning yesterday afternoon in the following counties: Fresno, El Dorado, Placer, Nevada, Sacramento, Solano, Yolo, Napa, Shasta, Trinity, Glenn, Lake, Mendocino, Butte, Tehama, Colusa, Sonoma and Santa Barbara.
The situation in Marin county was alarming late yesterday, with a great fire sweeping toward the town of Fairfax. Other fires in Marin County seem to rage with unabated intensity with flames sweeping, Bolinas Ridge and threatening San Geronimo.
Last night the flames had subsided to some extent when the wind died down. The danger of a fresh outbreak, however, with freshening wind led the firefighters to relax nothing in their battle.
The fire in the Santa Barbara National Forest had assumed gigantic proportions and other big fires were roaring around Gordon Valley and Blue Ridge, Pt. Reyes and at the Central Camp headquarters of the Sugar Pine Lumber Company, 40 miles east of Fresno.
The town of Fairfax, Marin county, was seriously menaced at a late hour yesterday by an immense forest fire racing ahead of a 60-mile gale toward the city of fine residences from the Cascades Canyon.
At least 700 firefighters were fighting desperately in the Cascades and also along the Bolinas Ridge, where the fire was spilling over into the valley in which Fairfax is situated.
Intense anxiety was felt by the residents of all the cities and towns between Corte Madera and San Rafael because Fairfax was felt to be the key to the fire situation in that thickly populated area.
The towns said to be in danger from this suddenly revived fire are Corte
Madera, Larkspur, Kentfield, Ross, Fairfax, San Anselmo, Larkspur and San
Rafael.
The fire was within a mile and a-half of the center of
Fairfax.
Another branch of the forest fire was again threatening Forest Knolls last evening which has already been in imminent fire jeopardy several times during the last few days. The fire had advanced to within a half mile of Forest Knolls. At 4:30 p. m. the fire in the vicinity of the latter place jumped Carson Creek at a point where the creek was sixty feet wide in thickly wooded country and according to the latest word was racing along the east side of Carson Creek toward Lagunitas which hitherto as has narrowly escaped destruction.
Late last night it was reported that the fire had subsided.
HEAVY LOSS,
According to an estimate of fire loss made today by Edwin T. Coleman and S. Clay Herzog, president and vice-president respectively of the Marin County National Bank, the damage amounts already to between $500,000 and $600,000 of which $100,000 is dwellings, $200,000 pasturage and $100,000 fencing and ranch property. It is not known how many cattle perished in the flames.
Additional fires broke out yesterday afternoon in Marin County, one on Miller's Ranch in Nicasio Valley where fire fighters from Lagunitas were sent.
The Lucas Valley School was burned yesterday. Fires broke out in Indian
Valley.
Summary of Fire Damage In California
The fire situation late yesterday showed:
The city of Fairfax, Marin County, menaced by furious forest fire racing through the Cascades Canyon. Anxiety felt for Fairfax and all the adjoining towns from Corte Madera to San Rafael. Forest Knolls and Lagunitas were also threatened. Wind died down late last night, relieving situation in Marin County.
Toll taken of fire damage showed the following towns destroyed by fire: Boyes Springs, Sonoma County; Markhams, Sonoma County; Trinity, Sonoma County; El Dorado, El Dorado County; Woodacre, Marin County.
The following-towns narrowly escaped destruction: Guerneville, Montesano, Monte Cristo, Agua Caliente, Fetters Springs, El Verano, Glenn. Ellen and Vineburg in Sonoma County; ignacio and Novato, Marin County.
Loss Berkeley fire, $9,000,000.
Loss in Sonoma County, $2,000,000.
Loss in Marin County to last night, $600,000.
Loss near Petaluma, $10,000.
Loss
Central Camp, Madera County, $100,000.
Loss Port Costa fire, $100,000.
Fires were burning yesterday in 18 counties cf California.
The most serious fires were those in Marin County and the fire in the Santa Barbara National Forest.
Five thousand men were fighting fires yesterday in Marin County.
NINE MARIN TOWNS PERILED
With a great forest fire threatening the town, the Tamalpais Union High School at Mill Valley was dismissed yesterday afternoon and all male students drafted to fight the flames.
Every able-bodied man in Marin county has conscripted into the big army of fire fighters. The fire swept area covered last evening more than fifty square miles, embracing the area from Ignacio through Lucas Valley to Bolinas.
The towns in danger of destruction were Fairfax, Stinson Beach, Bolinas, Forest Knoll, Lagunitas, Nicasio, Ignacio and Novato. The flames were were sweeping within a short distance south of Fairfax and four miles from Forest Knoll on the Alpine and Bolinas Ridges.
With diminishing wind there was less danger late last night. Every effort was being made by an army of volunteers to prevent the fire from continuing its sweep over the county.
Two hundred soldiers from Fort Baker were sent into the fire areas of Marin county yesterday, one hundred going to the Cascades near Fairfax and the remainder to San Geronimo to help check the Lucas Valley fire. Two hundred soldiers from Angel Island were later sent to join the fire fighters.
Twenty patients of the Aroquipa Sanitarium on White's Hill, which was hemmed in by flames, were moved to the community house at Fairfax, where the fire was checked before it reached the structure. The town of Woodacre was wiped out with the exception of five homes by the Lucas Valley fire.
HEAVY LOSS IN SONOMA FIRE SWEEP
Boyes Springs, Other Resorts, Ranches, Summer Cottages, Huge Winery Obliterated
SANTA ROSA, Sept. 18. The greatest fire in breadth of area, costliest in property values and damaging in charring of scenery was presented in four distinct sections of the county today, when some of the smoke had cleared away and frenzied people became calm. The general estimate of loss is placed in excess of $2,000,000. A thousand men fought fire in the hills, in the valleys and along the Russian River. Nature, which suddenly about one o'clock this morning calmed the gale, proved the most effective fire fighter.
The eastern slope of the "Valley of the Moon," stretching from the Kenwood hills to south of Boyes Springs, is blackened and charred. Vast ranch areas, more than fifty thousand acres, have been swept. A number of ranch houses and miles of fencing have been destroyed. Sweeping westerly, the fire field wiped out the Boyes Springs community, including the famous hotel, the Sonoma Vista Addition with its sixty summer cottages, The W. J. Minges group of fourteen homes, W. F. Dutton's six residences, all business houses at Boyes, including the post office, garages, depot and other buildings.
The loss by this fire is estimated at least $1,000,000. Antone Valles' big winery, containing 100,000 gallons of wine, his fine home and outbuildings, valued at over $100,000, is one of the big single losses in the Kenwood-Sonoma conflagration.
The fire in the Guerneville Russian River section swept over about forty thousand acres. It was stated this morning that over forty summer homes had been burned, several resorts damaged and that the property loss would exceed five hundred thousand dollars. The large rustic hotel at Markhams, the summer homes of Henry D. and Will C. Noonan, Joe Ryan and others at Markhams, and the new Virdun lumber mill were destroyed. The big Austin creek bridge and a railroad trestle near Cazadero were burned.
Campus Co-Eds Brave Cinder Shower Stars of Gridiron Form Rescue Squads
By DOROTHY BENNETT
The fire came down Euclid avenue almost to the university campus. We could see the houses burning, up the street, and the smoke and flames came thick toward new houses.
At the the entrance, there, a truck dashed up with furniture and boys. They unloaded, and went up again, and the girls standing around, with their suitcases and bundles, sat down in the chairs or on pianos and couches and sewing machines.
"Stand back, we're going to dynamite," - an automobile of khaki-clad students came from somewhere, and went out through the gate.
Two men in blue and khaki football uniform trotted past. They went on up Euclid avenue to meet the fire that was fierce and gorgeous, as it leaped on from house to house.
We saw figures on a roof they were boys fighting for their fraternity house. The furniture of the house was being dragged out by others, who rushed it down to us, at the campus. They were wet and dirty and determined.
From the west we saw flames further down, and heard the dull thud of dynamiting. The smoke was in our eyes, and the wind blew, hot and dry, toward the campus, carrying burning cinders. But the boys on the roof of the wooden Architecture Building soaked it steadily from their hose.
A cinder stung my head, and I reached up and brushed it off. The girls around me were burned out, they had only had time to drag a suitcase with them before the fire came, but they stood still and watched the fire coming down as if they were daring it to come, and they'd fight it again.
Sooty, and hot, and hurried, the boys would come down to us, and leave a a load of furniture, or somebody's sewing machine there were five sewing machines there, and two or three pianos and then they'd go up again, as unafraid as if they were playing a game against the fire.
We heard the crash of roofs falling, and the dynamite squad blowing up buildings, and the flames sighing their way through this part of Berkeley. The north, in front of us, was lighted way up the hill, where the fire had come down. The west was burning brightly. The campus waited, all the buildings and trees and green lawns covered with black falling cinders, and heavy smoke, blown by the wind.
WIND CHANGES.
The boys on the frat house roof were fighting still, but the fire was nearer them only a house or two away. We hoped they'd come down quickly. We could feel the terrible heat from where we were.
Then I felt a cool puff of wind on my dry cheek. It came from the southwest. The wind had changed.
All the campus was safe, now, and the frat house, and the big apartment house near the university. The flames were blowing north, doubling back on themselves.
"You can't beat us," the campus seemed to say, "and you can't beat these boys who have fought so long and so hard for me, and the girls that stood by with water and food, and were burned out with a smile."
And that's true, because I saw the boys go up toward the fire, with the joy of adventure on their sooty faces and I saw the girls look at their remaining possessions, and take their losses bravely, and stand by to help others.
With such a fighting spirit, and with the friendly wind that came, even that savage fire was checked in its tracks. And the campus is standing untouched, by the side of the poor scarred black patch that was all the beautiful homes, and tall trees of North Berkeley.
FIRE-BREAKS TO BE CUT IN HILLSIDES
Extensive firebreaks are to be installed in the Oakland hills to insure the city against a repetition of the disastrous fire which swept a large part of the residential section of the city of Berkeley. The decision to make these breaks, or large plowed clear spaces, was made yesterday morning at a conference between Fire Chief Sam Short and Commissioner Frank Colbourn.
"When the fire is in the lower sections of town we can stop it under ordinary circumstances, but when it is confined to the dry grass and brush in the hills it is almost impossible to check it. In the first place we have no water, and in the second place the brush is often so thick that we cannot check it before it reaches the lower sections," Colbourn said.
"There is little chance that water could be installed in the hills, and if there were there would not be sufficient pressure. Therefore we have decided that other measures must be taken to protect the city from a repetition of yesterday's fire in Berkeley," he added.
"After considerable discussion we have decided to call a conference with the
officials of the water company, which owns a large portion of the property in
the hills."
Broken Power Line Held Cause of Fire
The cause of the Berkeley fire could not be absolutely determined yesterday, although the strongest theory, substantiated by Fire Warden W. H. Jordan of the San Pablo district was that the breaking of a big electric power line in Wildcat Canyon probably started the brush and eucalyptus trees.
Grass and brush fires are a common occurrence in the Berkeley hills this time of the year, Fire Chief G. Sydney Rose said.
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