Brush Fire In Oakland Hills Area Extinguished

OAKLAND, Calif., Jun. 20, 2007 (KGO) (KGO) -- A fire this afternoon in the Oakland Hills served as a scary reminder for people living near Skyline Boulevard and Broadway Terrace. That's the same area devastated by a firestorm back in 1991.

Cal Fire tankers and east bay regional park helicopters pounded away at the fire nestled in a canyon south of the Caldecott Tunnel. Up above are the homes that replaced the ones destroyed by the 1991 firestorm.

Terry Mitchell-Charonnat, Oakland Hills Resident: "My neighbor came over, her son came over. She had her sprinklers on. I opened the door and there's like smoke all over the place."

Several of the onlookers are survivors of the 1991 blaze that killed 25 people.

Peter Strauss, Oakland Hills Resident: "It's déjā vu all over again. Oh my god, here we go."

The air drops bought enough time for crews to hike in and battle the fire by hand.

The fire started in a grove of eucalyptus trees like these. The bark is dry, flaky, the tree is full of oil and it's highly flammable.

Batt. Chief Lorenzo Frediani, Oakland Fire Dept.: "This could have been very difficult to fight."

But the philosophy in this historically vulnerable area is to throw everything you've got at it, as quickly as you can. The East Bay Regional Park District has been busy clearing out eucalyptus trees.

Peter Strauss: "But this is all PG&E land down here. And I don't understand for the life of me why they haven't done more to create a clear fire line."

Oakland Fire says PG&E has addressed the issue but there are a lot of eucalyptus trees and it takes time to cut them down. This fire only scorched an acre or two, but its an early start to the fire season, and firefighters expect to see a lot more.

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