As fireworks were set off in the region through the Fourth of July holiday weekend, several fires dotted the Bay Area into Friday night, though officials reported no fatalities and no life-threatening injuries.
“Nobody died, we just have a lot of tired firefighters,” Alameda County Fire spokeswoman Cheryl Hurd said Saturday morning.
In Alameda County, fire personnel responded to about 26 calls possibly related to fireworks, Hurd said, with most being dumpster or vegetation fires. Fireworks-related calls continued to come in at about 3 a.m. Saturday morning, Hurd said.
Among the largest blazes was a four-alarm fire early Friday evening at a warehouse on East 8th Street, between 52nd Avenue and 53rd Avenue, near San Leandro Street and about a mile from the Coliseum. It required at least 75 firefighters to knock down, authorities said.
Some nearby residents were evacuated after the fire erupted at about 4:55 p.m. Firefighters were able to knock it down at about 7 p.m., according to Oakland fire spokesman Michael Hunt. A reportedly vacant residential building also was burned in the incident, Hunt said, but no injuries were reported.
Flames also singed a utility pole, knocking out power to nearby customers. As of Saturday afternoon, several residents were still displaced and without power due to the fire, according to Hunt. The Red Cross was called to help those affected by the fire.
Elsewhere in the East Bay, two homes were destroyed and another two suffered minor damage in another blaze in the city of Alameda, officials said, displacing one man.
The fire sparked sometime around 7:30 p.m. at a residence near the intersection of Sandalwood Isle and Otis Drive. In total, four engines, two trucks and more responded to the fire, which took about 45 minutes to knock down, according to Alameda Fire Captain Kyle Garcia.
The flames left two severely damaged homes uninhabitable, with one resident finding temporary refuge at a friend’s house. The other home was reportedly vacant, Garcia said. No injuries were reported.
Firefighters in Contra Costa County responded to an alleged fireworks-related explosion just after midnight on Saturday on Spanos Street that left five people injured, spokeswoman Lauren Ono said Saturday. Injuries ranged from “critical to minor,” Ono said.
Redwood City Battalion Chief Jeff Balton said one juvenile was sent to Stanford Hospital due to a suspected fireworks related incident sometime after 9 p.m. Friday night in unincorporated North Fair Oaks. There were no other significant blazes to report, he said, which is “good for us, and good for the community.”
In San Jose, a tree fire late Friday night injured one resident and damaged some homes and two vehicles in the 1600 block of Carmel Dr., authorities said.
San Jose Fire reported that embers from the burning trees spread to three nearby homes, causing minor damage. One vehicle suffered “heavy fire damage,” according to department spokeswoman Hannah Denys. One resident was transported to a hospital with non-life threatening injuries, Denys added.
Santa Clara County Firefighters battled a vegetation fire that scorched almost 16 acres in the Coyote Creek Watershed, Assistant Chief of Operations Bill Murphy said Saturday morning.
The fire erupted just after 4 p.m. Friday and during a “critical burn period,” when the day’s higher temperatures peaked, Murphy said. It took 13 engines to knock down the fire by about 6:30 p.m., Murphy said, which burned along Highway 1 near the Coyote Creek Golf Club, he said, though none of the golf courses were damaged.
Firefighters were still monitoring any hot spots as of 11 a.m. Saturday morning, Murphy added. Murphy said there were no reports of fireworks at the time, and he had no indication that fireworks were the cause of the vegetation fire.
County firefighters did not respond to any additional major structure fires through Friday night, Murphy said.
“We were a little bit fortunate last night that the weather was much cooler. There wasn’t any significant wind,” Murphy said. “Overall, it was a little bit calmer than the last couple of years, and I would attribute that to the weather being a little bit more mild.”
Bay Area News Group reporter Grant Stringer contributed to this report.