Wildfire Breaks Out near UC Berkeley Campus; Power Shut Down

Sean Breslin
Published: August 2,2017

Crews work to contain the so-called Hills fire in the Oakland Hills area of Oakland, California, Wednesday, Aug. 2, 2017.
(Instagram/Japhy Alexander III)

Dozens of firefighters were called to the scene of a wildfire spreading rapidly in the hills near the University of California, Berkeley on Wednesday.
Dubbed the Hills fire, the blaze broke out in the Oakland Hills area and quickly grew to 5 acres, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. During a late-afternoon briefing, fire officials said the wildfire had doubled in size and burned 10 acres.
Authorities decided to evacuate some off-campus buildings that belong to UC Berkeley, but the main campus was not ordered to evacuate, the report added. Shortly after 2:30 p.m. local time, a university-wide alert was sent to inform students and staff that power would be shut down across the campus as a precautionary measure.
(MORE: Dozens of U.S. Cities Remain on Record-Warm Pace for 2017)
Some roads in the area were also shut down by the wildfire, KGO-TV reported.
The fire broke out in an area near the location of a 1991 inferno known as the Tunnel fire, the San Francisco Chronicle also reported. That conflagration was responsible for 25 deaths and 2,900 structures burned in what was one of the worst wildfires in the state's history.
So far, no injuries have been reported, and no structures have been destroyed by the blaze.
MORE: Wildfires Burn in California, Canada

The Weather Company’s primary journalistic mission is to report on breaking weather news, the environment and the importance of science to our lives. This story does not necessarily represent the position of our parent company, IBM.