Tempered by Fire: A History of the Berkeley Fire Department

“There is a fault line running through our country…We are not only killed by earthquakes, we are killed by poor building standards.” A man whose brother and nephew were killed in Kahramanmaras, Turkey, interviewed by Jane Ferguson, 10 February 2023, PBS News. 

Tempered by Fire: History of the Berkeley Fire Department, 3rd ed., by Linda P. Rosen, is a very timely piece of public safety history considering our recent “year-round” wildfire season, global climate change and other disasters, as well as the horror of the earthquake in Turkey (since the Hayward Fault lies right under the Clark Kerr Campus in Berkeley).

Why is this in “Knox Book Beat?” Because Rosen’s history of the BFD points out not only the tremendous heroism, reorganizations, mechanization and sacrifices of the Fire Department and their personnel through the years, but the frank foolishness shown by voters, government, land and resource developers in spite of “Not Enough Water” “to fight fires.” (p.1)

In the “grass-covered hills” left by the conquistadors, missionaries and ranchers; Gold Rush miners, settlers and speculators planted flammable “eucalyptus groves and Monterey pines,” building “wooden buildings” and “brown-shingle houses” after the oak and sequoia/ coastal redwood water-condensing forests had been stripped off. “Tapping springs, damming creeks, building reservoirs, and installing tunnels and aboveground lead pipes” “could not solve the problem” in 1883, 1893, and beyond; even with paid City firefighters replacing scattered volunteer units in 1905.

Narrow, winding streets and huge homes on brush-filled lots were built back in crowded areas after hill fires of the more devastating 1923 and 1991. Berkeley City Council “acted on Chief Rose’s fire report” proposing a new fire code, “but the lumber companies and the shake-roof industry actively campaigned against it, and the ordinance was repealed in a citizen’s referendum in May 1924.” In the aftermath of 1991, “Fire Chief Cates proposed sweeping changes,” some of which were implemented, but “the salt water system and cisterns were not constructed (until 2000 p. 43). Many businessmen were afraid that disruption during construction would cause economic loss.”

Are University of California Berkeley, larger landlords and developers paying in enough to fund the public services necessary to save lives and livelihoods as well as investment properties? 2005, 2011, 2014 and 2016 saw warehouse and church fires fought, and there was a six-alarm high-rise fire in November of 2020 that took three days to extinguish. As Rosen concludes, “Ravenous life rebuilds, no lessons learned” even though “an officer stands guard.”

https://berkhistory.org/product/tempered-by-fire/

This book came to Knox Book Beat from John Aronovici of the Berkeley Historical Society & Museum. He knows me from our volunteer group, Community for a Cultural Civic Center, who have been observing and avidly participating in the City’s process of planning the transformation of the Martin Luther King Jr. Park, Maudelle Shirek Old City Hall Building and the Veterans’ Memorial Building, particularly since at least December of 2019. The Historical Society is in the Veteran’s Building now and is proposed to move into Maudelle Shirek, where Berkeley Community Media is already serving Council and the Public.

Seismic upgrades of both of the historic buildings have been one of the CCCCs priorities; and we, the Downtown Business Association and MANY other “members of the public” helped fund assessment and pricing of proposed retrofits and improvements; now very urgent in light of the failure of Measure L.

Please get involved in your local municipal, county and state governments to monitor policies, budgets and priorities. Thank you.

Published 23 February, 2023 as "Tempered by Fire," in The Berkeley Times, Knox Book Beat.

Berkeley Historical Society, P.O. Box 1190, Berkeley, CA 94701 info@berkhistory.org