Fire and Lies: Did the Berkeley Fire of 1923 Contribute to the Tunnel Fire of 1991?

Abstract

According to numerous eyewitnesses, wood shingle roofs were a primary factor in the speed and scope of the Berkeley fire of 1923, which destroyed in three hours six hundred structures in a dense residential neighborhood adjacent to the campus of the University of California. The city council swiftly banned shingles for homeowners who were building anew, not only in the burn area but citywide, and limited the use of shingles in refurbishing existing roofs. This essay, part 2 of a two-part series, describes and analyzes the shingle industry’s refusal to accept these limits on their lucrative market, and their subsequent disinformation campaign to persuade Berkeley voters that wood shingles were not a fire hazard. The efforts of the industry in 1923 and 1924 are shown to have contributed to the ferocity of the Tunnel Fire of 1991 (also known as the Oakland–Berkeley Firestorm) in which twenty-five individuals died from direct exposure to fire, and another thirty-four due to lethal afflictions triggered by the fire.