OAKLAND — A massive four-alarm fire erupted near the Oakland Coliseum Friday evening, engulfing a commercial warehouse in flames and threatening nearby buildings before firefighters managed to contain the blaze.
The Oakland Fire Department (OFD) reported the fire just before 5:10 p.m. at a warehouse on the 5200 block of East 8th Street. Within minutes, the blaze intensified, prompting crews to escalate the response to four alarms.
“This easily could have been a two or three block radius fire had the crews not acted so quickly to get it under control,” OFD Fire Chief Damon Covington told KTVU. Crews were still working to fully extinguish the fire as of 6 p.m..
According to OFD Battalion Chief Porya Jeddi, an Oakland Police Department officer on scene spoke with a tenant who indicated there was a possible marijuana grow operation inside the warehouse. Authorities have not confirmed the legality of the operation or if it played a role in the fire.
Jeddi emphasized that it was unusual for the entire warehouse to be engulfed so quickly, describing it as “not normal” for a building of that size.
“On a bigger building like this, we usually have some time to recover,” Jeddi said. “However, upon arrival, the whole warehouse was gone.”
Given the intensity of the flames, firefighters shifted to defensive tactics, focusing on preventing the fire from spreading to nearby structures. Crews successfully protected adjacent residential buildings, though the fire did spread to RVs parked nearby and an adjacent abandoned building.
Over 70 firefighters were deployed to the scene, with forward progress of the fire halted by around 6 p.m.. No injuries to firefighters or civilians have been reported.
Authorities remain on scene, and the cause of the fire remains under investigation. Residents are urged to avoid the area as crews work to fully extinguish hotspots and secure the scene.
