On Berkeley’s Panoramic Way, Residents Prepare to Fight Their Own Fires

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On Berkeley’s Panoramic Way, Residents Prepare to Fight Their Own Fires

7 October 2008 374 views No Comment

Story by Amanda Dyer and Casey Miner

To many people, Panoramic Hill’s winding roads, bay views, and lush vegetation make it one of the most beautiful neighborhoods in Berkeley. But all Linnea Edmeier sees is a disaster waiting to happen.

Edmeier, 42, is a former fire captain with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. Before starting graduate school at UC Berkeley this year, she considered renting a room on Panoramic Hill. But when she looked at Panoramic’s narrow, winding roads, she envisioned downed telephone poles, thick smoke and widespread panic. She turned down the room. The fire risk was just too high.

“We say, ‘What if? What if?’” she says. “But it’s a reality.”

The geography of the neighborhood is unique in Berkeley. Only one narrow road leads into or out of the neighborhood. That road – Panoramic Way – winds its way through the hills for several miles, spanning both Berkeley and Oakland.

The neighborhood’s water supply, say fire officials, relies on pipes installed in the 1920s. To upgrade it would require closing the road.

At the foot of the hill is Memorial Stadium. Underneath lies the Hayward fault. In a worst-case scenario, a severe earthquake would strike during a football game, knocking down trees and telephone poles across Panoramic Way and igniting electrical fires. Fire trucks would try to reach the neighborhood as thousands of people fled the stadium.

For those reasons, hill residents receive more supplies and monitoring from the fire department than any neighborhood in the city. Even so, fire officials say that the difficulties of accessing the neighborhood may force residents to fight the blaze themselves.

“Panoramic is a unique situation,” says former Berkeley Deputy Fire Chief David Orth. “It isn’t good.”

The neighborhood was not damaged during the 1991 Oakland Hills fire that destroyed more than 3,000 buildings. But residents realized they might not be so lucky again.

“People on Panoramic were buying their own fire hoses,” says Orth. Rather than forbid them to use it, he says, the department decided to work with the neighborhood.

After the 1991 fire, the Panoramic Hill Association, a group representing the neighborhood’s approximately 600 residents, applied for, and received, a cache of emergency supplies from the city. They invited firefighters to demonstrate how to use hydrants and hoses, divided neighbors into small “clusters” that would keep tabs on each other in the event of an emergency, and began to hold annual drills, sometimes requiring everyone who wished to participate to walk all the way down the hill – no cars allowed.

“We’ve trained the neighborhood organization up there and equipped them for fighting fires, because they may be on their own,” says Orth.

Late September and October are the months with the highest fire danger.

During those months, says Orth, the neighborhood gets additional support from the East Bay Regional Parks District and state firefighters, as well as regular monitoring by both Oakland and Berkeley.

But supervision does not end in October.

“Year-round we send two full assignments to that area because the hazard is so high,” says Orth.

Despite their own training and the city’s support, some residents say they have doubts about how effective their planning will be, especially if a fire were to spread as quickly, and, as far as the 1991 fire.

“I am fairly confident I could get away,” says Panoramic Hill resident Marna Owen, 52. “Traffic problems and the road configuration would mean walking, not driving. Neighbors up the hill will have a worse time, and the elderly will really be in trouble.”

Another problem, says resident Penny Rink, is that many residents have not had to deal with a real emergency.

Rink, who is in her 60s, remembers the 1991 fire, as do some of her neighbors. But some new residents don’t seem concerned about preparedness, she says, and older residents are growing tired of the constant vigilance.

“They’re pretty clueless,” she says of the new residents. “We’re just getting more and more discouraged.”

But if history is any indication, says Orth, citizens can be effective. During the 1991 fire, he says, the department’s last remaining fire engine came upon a neighborhood where three houses were on fire, and two more were starting to burn.

“And then these civilians sort of came out of nowhere,” he says. Without them, he thinks the fire would have spread to College Avenue.

“Beyond them, there wasn’t anybody left to fight it.”