35 years since the Oakland Hills fire.

October 18, 2026

My late former wife, Micci, and I had just bought our first house in the Temescal neighborhood of North Oakland, known then mostly as Baja Rockridge. It was a warm, dry October Sunday, the kind of day we always used for our annual sojourn to the pumpkin patches in Half Moon Bay, running our dog Emily on the beach and getting out of the heat building in Oakland. The wind was up a little, but not enough to worry anyone. What I remember most is how dry it was.

We had the 49ers game on the radio. When we topped the hill on 92, we saw a plume of smoke blowing west across the Bay. Then the news reported a fire near the Caldecott Tunnel. It wasn't close to home, but we turned around anyway.

We spent that afternoon in the street with our neighbors, anxiously watching the fire jump Highway 24 and burn above and below Highway 13, coming our way. We packed the car. We watered the roof and the yard. Then we waited.

Then the weather turned. By late afternoon the wind slowed and swung around to the west, off the ocean. By evening it had died, and the fog came back. That gave firefighters their chance. Even so, it took them until Wednesday morning to declare the fire under control.

Twenty-five people died, 150 were injured, and more than 3,000 homes and apartments burned. The damage came to $1.5 billion at the time, more than $3 billion in today's dollars. EBMUD learned hard lessons that day, and it has acted on them.

Now as a Director on the EBMUD Board, most of the 1991 firestorm zone, from where it started above the Caldecott to Hiller Highlands, upper Rockridge and Broadway Terrace, lies in Ward 3. And the communities that I represent in Orinda, Moraga, and El Sobrante hug our watershed, the same urban wildland interface where fire risk is highest, much of it now designated Zone Zero.

The first lesson concerns the land. EBMUD manages nearly 60,000 acres of watershed here and in the Sierra foothills. Those hills are where fires start and where our water comes from. Year-round, the district builds and maintains fuel breaks, removes dead and hazardous trees, uses prescribed burns to reduce fuel, keeps fire roads open, and controls vegetation. Minding the watershed is fire prevention, and it protects the water too.

The second lesson concerns the water system. In 1991, the fire cut power to pumping stations, reservoirs ran dry, and in some neighborhoods firefighters ran out of water. Today, our critical facilities have backup generators. The district brings in portable generators and pumps when PG&E shuts off power, and it tops off neighborhood water tanks during Red Flag Warnings so there is as much water as possible on hand for firefighting.

The third lesson is that no agency can do this alone. EBMUD helped found the Hills Emergency Forum and plans and responds alongside fire departments, the East Bay Regional Park District, and other agencies. Utilities across California share crews and equipment through mutual assistance when disaster hits.

No water system can stop a wind-driven firestorm by itself. EBMUD says so plainly. But we are far better prepared than we were.

Thirty-five years later, the weather this past week looked a lot like that day: four or five days of dry heat, with the fog due back in a few hours, just as it came back in 1991. What we didn't get this year was the wind. If we had, we could be marking this anniversary with a new fire burning somewhere in Ward 3.

The Tunnel Fire was a warning, and the state has seen it come true again and again. The conditions that created it were hot, dry offshore winds blowing across vegetation left parched by a warm fall with no rain yet. Climate change is making those conditions more common. Researchers at Stanford and UCLA found that the number of autumn days with extreme fire weather in California has more than doubled since the early 1980s, and that it will keep rising as the climate warms. We have watched what that means: the Tubbs Fire in Santa Rosa in October 2017; the Camp Fire in 2018, which wiped out Paradise and destroyed more than 18,000 structures; and the Eaton and Palisades fires that tore through Los Angeles in January 2025, killing at least 31 people, destroying more than 16,000 structures, and causing an estimated $76 billion to $131 billion in property and capital losses. Whole towns lost. Communities still rebuilding years later.

Water utilities pay a price too. After the Los Angeles fires, S&P Global Ratings downgraded the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, citing its wildfire exposure. Climate risk now shows up in what it costs a public water system to borrow, and ratepayers carry that cost. Preparing ahead protects people and homes, and it protects the public budgets that keep water flowing.

Let's be honest about this. In these hills, another major fire is a matter of when, not if. Diablo winds have driven fires here before: in 1923, in 1970, and in 1991. What EBMUD does year-round can reduce the risk and make us better prepared to fight a fire. It cannot make the risk go away. Fire safety in the East Bay depends on how we care for the land and on water that holds up when everything else fails: the watershed, the reservoirs, pumps, pipes, and hydrants. That is the work of EBMUD, and it's why proud to be running again to continue that work.

The rest is up to us, as residents and neighbors:

• Sign up for EBMUD's water emergency alerts at ebmud.com/subscriptions, and for your city's emergency alerts.

• Store emergency water for every person and pet in your household.

• Clear brush, dead leaves, and dry vegetation from around your home, roof, and gutters. In 1991, wood-chip mulch and wood-shake roofs helped carry embers from house to house.

• Keep streets and hydrants clear. In 1991, cars parked on narrow hill roads and in front of hydrants kept fire engines from getting through and hooking up.

• Make a plan and pack a go-bag: know two ways out of your neighborhood and where your family will meet.

• Know your neighbors, especially those who are older, live alone, or don't drive.

That afternoon in 1991, it was neighbors standing in the street together, watering roofs and watching out for one another.

EBMUD released this video ahead of the anniversary . Please watch it and share it before the next dry, windy day.

Marguerite Young, EBMUD Director, Ward 3

Sources

East Bay Municipal Utility District. "Fire Readiness Built on Lessons Learned." Customer Pipeline, September/October 2026. https://www.ebmud.com/customers/pipeline/2026/09/fire-readiness-built-lessons-learned.

Goss, Michael, Daniel L. Swain, John T. Abatzoglou, Ali Sarhadi, Crystal A. Kolden, A. Park Williams, and Noah S. Diffenbaugh. "Climate Change Is Increasing the Likelihood of Extreme Autumn Wildfire Conditions across California." Environmental Research Letters 15, no. 9 (2020): 094016. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ab83a7.

"Most Destructive Wildfires in California History." ABC7 News, January 2025. https://abc7news.com/post/biggest-most-destructive-fires-california-history/15787046/.

Wikipedia. S.v. "Oakland Firestorm of 1991." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oakland_firestorm_of_1991.

Young, Marguerite. When Climate Strikes: How Climate Disasters Are Reshaping Public Budgets, Public Services, and Public Work. Prepared for SEIU Climate and Environmental Justice. Rivernstream LLC, May 2026. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1hwpLiN8u30oobYCaK02nfNlV7_PnlOs1/view.