Is Oakland Overdue for Another Firestorm?

Right before deadly fires broke out last weekend in California’s wine country, John Radke, a Berkeley professor who specializes in fire modeling and environmental planning, tossed and turned in bed. “I couldn’t sleep all Sunday night,” he recalls. “I thought, This is 1991 all over again. I could feel it—the conditions were all the same.”

Radke is referring to the 1991 Oakland hills firestorm, a calamitous and swift-moving blaze that killed 25 people, destroyed roughly 3,000 homes and 2,000 vehicles, and caused an incredible $1.5 billion in damages. His hunch proved correct, at least for the North Bay: Intense fires flared up in Sonoma, Napa, and elsewhere, fueled by powerful winds, bone-dry humidity, and drought-affected vegetation. The latest toll of the still-smoldering catastrophe is more than 30 dead and about 450 missing, with ongoing mandatory evacuations.