Oakland firestorm of 1991

[Jim Eshelman]

October 20, 1991, shortly before 11:00 AM, 37N51'40'', 122W13'19'' (estimate 10:50 AM)

The Oakland Firestorm of 1991, aka the Oakland Hills Fire aka the Tunnel Fire, is (as of this moment, before Napa-Sonoma final figures are in) California's worst fire ever. It is technically a wildfire, such as normally covers fast non-urban region, but occurred within a major city, on Oakland's populated hillsides to which it spread from Berkeley. The initial cause was a grass fire in Berkeley that was incompletely extinguished.

The coordinates above are for the original fire. The time is for when the relatively harmless original fire reignited a day after it was thought extinguished, and then brought hell to Oakland. Diablo winds fed the fire, which then turned into a full firestorm, generating its own winds. It was not fully contained until October 23, around 8:00 AM.

25 people died, 150 were injured, 1,520 acres were burned, 2,843 single family dwellings and 437 apartment buildings burned. Economic damages were approximately $1.5 billion ($2.7 billion in 2017 dollars).

The solar ingresses are inert. The new Caplunar is totally whacked (unless you factor the relatively small death count; although economic damages were horrible). The CapQ, however, zeroes in on the day and, as Bradley noted in the mid-1950s, the CapQ alone is able to show many large fires. The Cansolar factors are mixed, but do include Moon-Neptune. - Not a great example, but perhaps an instructive one.

Year: Capsolar (Dormant.) Moon-Neptune conj. (2°14')
Year: Cansolar (Dormant.) Moon-Neptune conj. (1°31'), Moon-Uranus sq. (2°18')

Bridge
t Neptune sq. Cansolar Moon (0°33')
t Jupiter conj. Cansolar EP (0°59')

Quarter: Libsolar (Dormant.)

Month: Caplunar
Jupiter on WP (0°30')
Venus on WP (1°17')
-- Venus-Jupiter conj. (0°09')

Day: Capsolar Quotidian & Transits
p Asc op. s Saturn (0°04'), op. p Moon (1°13'), sq. t Sun (0°17')
-- t Sun sq. p Moon (0°46'), sq. s Saturn (0°31')
p MC sq. t Neptune (0°49')
p EP op. t Uranus (1°04')

Day: Cansolar Quotidian & Transits
p MC conj. t Venus (0°17')
-----------------------------------
t Neptune sq. s Moon (0°33')
t Jupiter conj. s EP (0°59')
t Venus sq. s MC (0°35')