Crews battle fire in Oakland hills

A fire Wednesday around Grizzly Peak in the dry East Bay hills revived unpleasant memories of past infernos for longtime residents, before firefighters started to get the blaze under control.

Dubbed the Grizzly Fire, the blaze that broke out in the Oakland hills, an area prone to fires that spread quickly in part because of tangles of brown grass and thickets of gnarled trees, extended to 20 acres and was about 20 percent contained by early Wednesday evening, authorities said. They were cautiously optimistic about making progress overnight, with a cooling mist in the forecast and dropping temperatures helping out.

In the afternoon, locals armed with cameras and radio scanners went to a lookout on Grizzly Peak Boulevard to watch the blaze. Some, like Bob Campbell, a mortgage broker who works in Walnut Creek, survived the 1991 firestorm, which killed 25 people and destroyed more than 3,000 homes.

“I’ve got a teenager who doesn’t drive and who doesn’t run fast,” he said of his daughter, not taking his eyes off the smoke.

More than 150 firefighters responded, including two fire investigators. Some UC Berkeley buildings were evacuated as a precaution, and the university said it had planned a campus-wide power outage because of concerns over blown transformers. Two summer camps with about 100 children were also evacuated.

The fire started about 1 p.m. off Fish Ranch Road and Grizzly Peak and by 4 p.m. had grown to 10 acres, officials said. By dusk, there were no structures threatened. One firefighter sustained a minor injury and was in stable condition at a hospital, officials said.

Though the fire did not match the intensity, or size, of the devastating Oct. 20, 1991 fire in the same locale, many residents said it brought back bad memories.

The blaze Wednesday required at least four air tankers and four helicopters..

The fire was burning on both the east and west sides of the hills, spewing smoke throughout Contra Costa County and at least as far south as the Oakland airport.

A number of agencies — including firefighters from Berkeley, Alameda County, and the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection — responded to the blaze, said Deputy Chief Melinda Drayton of the Oakland Fire Department.

Drayton said that the blaze spread rapidly in part because of the dry vegetation in the difficultto-reach area.

Brandon Scheck, 30, whose family’s Orinda home was almost destroyed in the 1991 fire, listened closely to the progress of firefighters Wednesday on a police radio scanner and commended them.

“You hear ‘fire in the Oakland hills’ and your ears perk up a bit,” he said, “especially on a hot day like this with a bit of wind.”