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2016 Oakland warehouse fire

Date	December 2, 2016 (2016-12-02)
Time	11:30 p.m. (PST)
Venue	Ghost Ship
Location	1315 31st Avenue, Oakland, California, U.S.
Coordinates	37°46′40″N 122°13′38″W / 37.7777°N 122.2271°W / 37.7777; -122.2271
Type	Fire
Cause	Unknown
Deaths	36
Non-fatal injuries	2

On December 2, 2016, at approximately 11:30 p.m. PST, a fire broke out in a warehouse, known as Ghost Ship, that was converted into an artist collective and into unpermitted dwelling units in the Fruitvale neighborhood of Oakland, California. At the time of the fire, the warehouse was hosting a concert without a permit promoted by the house music record label 100% Silk.

A total of 36 people were killed in the fire, the deadliest in the history of Oakland. It was also one of the deadliest building fires in the United States in the last 50 years, the deadliest in California since the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and the deadliest mass-casualty event in Oakland since the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake.

Fire

The fire started in a 10,000-square-foot (930 m) (160 by 48 feet (49 m × 15 m)) converted warehouse, known as Ghost Ship. The space was home to an artist collective known as Satya Yuga, who worked at the warehouse. The warehouse was hosting a concert promoted by the house music record label 100% Silk, featuring several musicians from its roster, when the fire started.

Emergency response

It took four to five hours for 52 firefighters to extinguish the blaze. The effort involved 14 firefighting apparati. A search of the building was impeded when the roof collapsed. Drone aircraft were deployed to search for survivors using thermal imaging, but none were found.

Cause

It is not known what caused the fire. Burn patterns near the back wall on the first floor led to initial reports indicating the "source of the fire may have been a refrigerator." Agents from the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives investigating the scene discounted the refrigerator as the source, but said they were looking at a number of electrical appliances, circuits and wiring in the building. They reported that the fire on the first floor spread quickly and that individuals on the second floor were initially unaware of it. By the time they detected it, smoke travelling up two stairwells trapped them on the second floor. Neither of the stairs led to an exit.

Multiple factors may have contributed to the loss of life. There were no fire sprinklers in the building, and firefighters on scene heard no smoke detectors. Upon entering the building, firefighters found it was cluttered with furniture, art, and mannequins. Oakland Fire Department Chief Teresa Deloach Reed told reporters, "It was like a maze, almost." Deloach Reed said that it appeared that one of exit routes from the second floor was a makeshift stairway made of stacked wooden pallets. The stairway was quickly incinerated in the blaze, trapping victims on the second floor.

In a December 4 interview with The Today Show, Max Ohr, creative director of the artist collective, confirmed that there were no sprinklers in the building. Ohr also said that the collective had reported electrical problems to the owner of the building.

A criminal investigation into the fire was launched by the Alameda County District Attorney's Office on December 4. An arson investigation was also launched. Oakland Mayor Libby Schaff said charges against anyone found responsible could range from involuntary manslaughter to murder.

Victims

Around 50 people were present in the building at the time of the fire, and 36 were reported dead. Few serious injuries were reported; the sheriff's office said, "It appears that people either made it out , or they didn't make it out." A representative from Oakland's Highland Hospital reported receiving two patients, one of whom was discharged by December 4.

Officials initially expected the number of deaths to be close to 40, but by December 5, the Alameda County Sheriff's Office said that it was unlikely more bodies would be found. On December 7, officials said that the search of the warehouse had concluded, and no additional victims were found.

Of the musicians scheduled to perform at the concert, two—headliner Golden Donna and Aja Archuleta—were confirmed to have escaped the fire. A third, electro-industrial performer Joey Casio, who was to perform under the name Obsidian Blade, was listed as missing. Two other musicians scheduled to perform at the concert, disk jockey Nackt (Johnny Igaz) and outsider house artist and radio host Cherushii (Chelsea Faith Dolan), were killed. As of December 7, 2016, 35 of the 36 victims had been identified, leaving one unknown victim.

Several victims were musicians from the San Francisco Bay Area music scene, who were at the concert as attendees. Among them were Cash Askew, the guitarist for the San Francisco dream pop band Them Are Us Too, Brandon Chase Wittenauer, a musician who went by the stage name Nex Luguolo, Nick Gomez-Hall, the lead singer for the Rhode Island-based punk rock band Nightmom, and Nicole Siegrist, a synthpop musician with the group Introflirt who went by the name Denalda. Seventeen-year-old Draven McGill, who sang in the Pacific Boychoir, was the youngest fatality of the fire.

Building problems

The warehouse property is owned by Chor Ng, who is linked to 17 other properties in the San Francisco Bay Area. Before the fire, the building had already been under investigation by the Oakland Planning and Building Department for "blight" and "illegal interior construction". Complaints of hazardous garbage and construction debris around the building had also been made. At least ten complaints had been filed about the property since 1998, most recently on November 13 and 14. City building inspectors visited the warehouse on November 17, but left when no one answered the door. Inspectors are required to obtain permission from owners to gain entry, and when that fails, must seek a court order. A spokesperson for the Planning and Building Department noted that an event like the concert of December 2 would have required a special permit, but none had been issued. The City of Oakland's planning director revealed that the building had not been inspected for three decades.

Although the building's owner did not intend the warehouse to be a housing accommodation for any of the artists, the city is investigating whether people were living in the warehouse illegally. Ng stated that no one lived in the building, according to a translation by her daughter Eva. However, neighbors reported that it appeared that artists were living in the building. Although the city had labeled the warehouse a "fire hazard", the Ghost Ship's founder, Derick Ion Almena, allegedly did not respond to the city's concerns. Almena has stated that his wife, Micah Allison, his three children, and himself have slept inside his warehouse. Residents and others reported that he lived with his wife and children on the second floor and rented space to as many as 18 others who lived in recreational vehicles and makeshift rooms on the first floor. The vice president of the local firefighters union said that the fire marshal's office had been understaffed for years, and that a fire inspector seeing the conditions of the Ghost Ship "would have shut the place down".

Reactions

Mayor Libby Schaaf referred to the fire as "an immense tragedy." Governor Jerry Brown issued a statement extending his condolences. Congressperson Barbara Lee expressed sympathy for the victims and gratitude to the firefighters and first responders, and promised support in securing any needed federal assistance. Other state officials expressing condolences included Lieutenant Governor Gavin Newsom, Attorney General and U.S. Senator-elect Kamala Harris, and Assemblyperson Rob Bonta.

In an interview, Oakland City Council member Noel Gallo said that city officials "need to enforce the codes that we have" and that "we should have been more assertive in the past."

The Oakland Athletics baseball team offered to match donations for those affected, up to $30,000; the Oakland Raiders football team soon joined them. The Oakland-based Golden State Warriors basketball team announced a donation of $50,000 to the Fruitvale-based Unity Council. A fundraiser hosted by the Gray Area Foundation for the Arts had received nearly $400,000 in donations as of December 6. A Facebook Safety Check was deployed to help people find the whereabouts of friends and family who might have been in attendance.

On December 3, the record label 100% Silk posted on their Facebook page: "What happened in Oakland is an unbelievable tragedy, a nightmare scenario. Britt and I are beside ourselves, utterly devastated. We are a very tight community of artists and we are all praying, sending love and condolences to everyone involved and their families."

After the fire, a man identified as the Satya Yuga collective's founder, Derick Ion Almena, posted on Facebook that the fire had destroyed his warehouse. This post was criticized by several other Facebook users, who noted that the collective's founder had not mentioned anything about the people killed or injured in the fire. Almena later clarified his comments, stating, "In my previous Facebook post, I had no idea there was loss of life." In a brief interview on December 5, he spoke of the families of the victims, saying, "They're my children. They're my friends, they're my family, they're my loves, they're my future." In another interview on December 6, Almena said he was "incredibly sorry" and defended himself against charges of profit-seeking, saying, "This is not profit, this is loss. This is a mass grave."

On December 5, as the estimated death toll continued to rise, President Barack Obama said, "While we still don't know the full toll of this disaster, we do know that an American community has been devastated, and many people—including young men and women with their whole futures ahead of them—have tragically lost their lives." He also said that the city of Oakland, "one of the most diverse and creative cities in our country," would have the support of the American people in the aftermath of the disaster.

On the night of December 5, hundreds of people attended vigils in Oakland and San Francisco, in honor of the victims of the fire.

Local residents, including artists and tenants' rights activists, have cited the fire as a symptom of the San Francisco Bay Area's underlying housing crisis. City inspectors suspect that dozens of live-work warehouses similar to Ghost Ship exist in Oakland. On December 6, Mayor Schaaf announced $1.7 million in grant funding to create affordable spaces for artists and arts organizations.

Comparisons were drawn between this fire and the 1990 Happy Land fire, a nightclub fire in New York City that claimed 87 lives. The Happy Land fire also involved controversial operations of the structure, and suffered from similar conditions including lack of maintenance.

See also

• List of accidents and disasters by death toll
• List of disasters in the United States by death toll
• List of fires
• List of nightclub fires

References

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63. Sam Levin (December 5, 2016). "Oakland warehouse fire is product of housing crisis, say artists and advocates". The Guardian. Retrieved December 6, 2016.
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65. Rachel Swan (December 6, 2016). "Among Oakland's dozens of artist warehouses is one called Deathtrap". San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved December 6, 2016.
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67. "Oakland Fire Grim Reminder of Deadly Happy Land Blaze in 1990". NBC New York. December 7, 2016. Retrieved December 7, 2016.

External links

• Oakland Ghost Ship website

• Articles containing potentially dated statements from December 7, 2016
• 2010s in Oakland, California
• 2016 disasters in the United States
• 2016 fires
• 2016 in California
• Building fires in the United States
• December 2016 events in the United States
• Fires in California
• History of Oakland, California