The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Fire at Oakland dance party kills at least 9
Officials fear deaths in cluttered studios number in dozens.
With about 35 people still missing, officials said they expect the death toll in the late-Friday warehouse blaze to increase.
OAKLAND,CALIF.— Anguished family members awaited news of the fate of dozens of people still unaccounted for Saturday after a fire gutted a makeshift nightclub in Oakland, leaving at least nine people dead.
In one of the deadliest structure fires in the United States in the past decade, some partygoers at the twostory converted warehouse were asphyxiated Friday night by thick black fumes, which poured from the building’s windows for several hours.
Oakland officials said the building, a rambling warehouse they described as “a labyrinth of artist studios,” had been under investigation for several months. They said escape from the building, which had only two exits, may have been complicated because the first and second floors were linked by an ad hoc staircase made of wooden pallets.
By Saturday afternoon, a list of the missing, compiled by friends and family, had grown to about 35 people.
“We expect the number of deceased to go up,” Sgt. Ray Kelly of the Alameda County Sheriff ’s Office said at an afternoon news conference. “We’re expecting the worst, maybe a couple dozen victims.”
Earlier in the day, Kelly said, “We did not have a lot of victims go to the hospital,” adding, “It appears that people either made it out or they didn’t make it out.”
Firefighters arrived just before midnight Friday, and the fire was still smoldering more than 12 hours later. The officials said they were approaching the recovery efforts with extreme caution given the fragile state of the building.
One survivor, musician Aja Archuleta, 29, was scheduled to perform at the electronic music party on synthesizers and drum machines around 1 a.m. and was working at the door when the fire broke out around 11 or 11:15 p.m.
“There were two people on the first level who had spotted a small fire that was growing quickly,” she said. “It was a very quick and chaotic build, from a little bit of chaos to a lot of chaos.”
She added, “I have lost 20 friends in the past 24 hours.”
Family members of the missing expressed anguish over spending hours waiting to know if their relatives were inside.
Daniel Vega, 36, said he felt “infuriated” waiting to hear news of his 22-year-old brother, Alex Vega, who did not answer his phone Saturday morning. Vega said he had heard his brother was at the party.
“Give me some gloves. I’ve got work shoes. I’m ready,” Vega said. “Let me find my brother, that’s all I want.”
The building, the roof of which had collapsed, was a dangerous scene of debris, beams and other wreckage that was still hot in places. It had a permit to function as a warehouse, but not as a residence or party venue. The officials said they were investigating reports that the building had also been used as a living space.
At the news conference, Mayor Libby Schaaf said, “This is complicated. And it’s going to take us time to do the investigation that these families deserve.”
The building, known as the Ghost Ship, was the site of an event scheduled to feature a range of experimental and electronic music, performed by a synth musician drawing from the “black, queer diaspora” and others, as well as a visual installation.
On Saturday morning, the event’s Facebook page said admission to the show was $10 for those who arrived before 11 p.m. and $15 after that. By the end of the day, the pricing had disappeared and the page had turned into an emergency message board, as dozens of friends and family members posted about missing loved ones.
“A lot of these people are young people,” Kelly said. “They are from all parts of our community.” Some of the dead may be foreign nationals, he added.
Images from the building’s website depict a wooden studio filled with antiques, sculptures and curios. Old lamps, musical instruments, suitcases and rugs decorated the ornate space.
Responders said they arrived to find the building filled with heavy smoke and flames. Bodies were found on the second floor of the building, Oakland Fire Chief Teresa Deloach Reed said Saturday.
“In my career of 30 years, I haven’t experienced something of this magnitude,” she said.
Even without a full accounting, the fire was still one of the deadliest in the United States in many years. In 2003, 100 people were killed in a fire in a nightclub in Warwick, R.I. An explosion at a fertilizer plant in Texas in 2013 killed 15 people.
Deloach Reed said there were “no reports of smoke alarms going off.” At least two fire extinguishers were inside, she said.
Oakland’s music and art scene was already struggling with being displaced by high rents. The city’s underground bands and artists live a semi-nomadic existence in search of warehouses, homes and other spaces to show art, play music, and dance into wee hours.
Diego Aguilar-Canabal, a 24-year-old blogger and freelance writer who lives in Berkeley and plays guitar in a band called the Noriegas, said he has been to three dozen house and warehouse parties in two years.
“The basic idea is people want to do loud things late at night and industrial space is really good for that because there are aren’t many neighbors to complain,” he said. “There’s a lot of anxiety about income inequality and class warfare, and a lot of these artists are trying to do the best they can to have a community.”
Aguilar-Canabal had been to the Ghost Ship once, last summer, and remembered it as a dim and cluttered area.