"The main body of fire produced so much heat it ignited some of the townhomes,” Battalion Chief Jim Call of the Alameda County Fire Department told the San Francisco Chronicle. “It’s just difficult fire to get to because it’s in so many void spaces.”
Heat from the fire also blew out windows in a newly completed residential complex at 3900 Adeline St., across the street from the burned building.
Eschrich, the townhome resident who had described her early-morning escape, said she has been told that her home is a total loss. She said she had recently updated her renter's insurance and took her engagement ring when she fled. But she added that not everything she and her fiance lost can be replaced.
"There's plenty of stuff I can't imagine we lost," she said. "I have a great-uncle who is an artist, and I thought immediately about how I had just brought his sketches upstairs. So we lost those and -- there are countless things I can't replace. I don't care about the clothes and the furniture, it's just those mementos that are hard."