Firefighters Battle Massive West Oakland Warehouse Fire Overnight

Updated 12:55 p.m. Thursday

Firefighters battled a massive fire overnight and into Thursday morning that destroyed an Oakland warehouse and sent smoke plumes into the sky.

The fire on the 1700 block of 24th Street near Interstate 880 broke out around 10 p.m. on Wednesday, according to Michael Hunt, a spokesperson for the Oakland Fire Department. By 1 a.m., more than 70 firefighters on the scene had contained the blaze to the main building of the roofing supply company warehouse of Pacific Supply.

As of Thursday morning, crews remain on-site to mitigate hotspots and evaluate damage from the fire.

No injuries have been reported, but the warehouse structure along Wood Street is likely a total loss, Hunt said. The cause of the fire is under investigation. Streets surrounding the scene were closed due to water, and residents were asked to keep their windows closed.

The fire is the third in the neighborhood in the past week. On Friday, an RV caught fire at Wood and 17th streets in what fire officials believe was an arson attack.

The next day, a fire broke out in another RV on West Grand Avenue and Willow Street near Raimondi Park, the Mercury News reported. The cause of the fire was not clear.

Frequent fires aren’t new to the area of West Oakland near Wood Street. Over a span of 2 1/2 years, 200 fires were reported along the road, where about a mile-long stretch was a settlement for over 300 unhoused people until city officials evicted them in 2023.

During that time, fires’ causes weren’t often investigated, as their starting places were often obscured by propane tanks, lighters, and flammable siding on RVs, Hunt told KQED in May of last year, but some residents believed the fires could have been arson.

Pacific Supply’s warehouse is across the street from a city-run RV parking lot that runs from 24th Street to about West Grand Avenue.

KQED’s Erin Baldassari contributed to this report.