Investigators seek Oakland fire cause
Agents with the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives are investigating the cause of a fire at a North Oakland construction site, the agency said Friday.
Oakland firefighters raced to smother a smoky blaze Thursday night at 919 Stanford Ave. on the city’s border with Emeryville. Witnesses said the flames sparked around 9:30 p.m. in a former printers’ office, which was being converted to loftstyle apartments.
Fire investigators from the ATF’s San Francisco division were on scene Friday, said Alexandria Corneiro, an agency spokeswoman.
The 2story building, which is set to house seven to nine loftstyle units, had been under construction for years, neighbors told The Chronicle. Wilson Associates, the firm developing the space, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Thursday night’s fire follows a string of East Bay construction site blazes in recent years — at least 10 fires have occurred at housing developments since 2012. The Stanford Avenue fire was just 1 mile from the Intersection development on San Pablo Avenue, which burned twice in a 10month span from 2016 to 2017.
Housing developers suspect
many of the fires were arson, set by people who oppose gentrification and the rapid development of expensive properties.
A man accused of torching the underconstruction Hollis Oak apartments in October in West Oakland recently pleaded guilty to a single count of arson. Dustin Bellinger, also known as Faheem Bey, is expected to be sentenced Sept. 9 in federal court.
Officials have not determined whether Thursday’s fire was intentional or linked to any of the recent burn sites.
“Any determination of that nature with regards to any incident that occurred would stem solely off of what the evidence shows, and currently the fire is under investigation,” Corneiro said.
The Bay Area’s rapid surge in population and jobs has outpaced the development of housing. A regional planning agency found that Oakland must issue permits for 14,765 housing units and Emeryville must permit 1,496 housing units between 2014 and 2023 to accommodate demand.
As of last year, Emeryville and Oakland had issued 581 and 16,941 building permits, respectively, according to the California Department of Housing and Community Development.
C. Tito Young, an Emeryville planning commissioner, lamented the housing lost in Thursday’s fire.
“The housing for the individuals that would go into this is sorely needed,” he said. “For families, it’s devastating.”
Even if the Stanford Avenue blaze was not intentionally set, experts said the destruction was a loss of time and resources in a region beset by high demands for housing.
“The amount of pollution it takes to get that material just so it could go up in smoke is just a shame,” Young said.
“The housing for the individuals that would go into this is sorely needed.” C. Tito Young, Emeryville planning commissioner