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Photo of the blaze as seen from Jack London Square. By Eli Rosseter for SFist
This just in: A fire larger than a city block is burning on Alameda's Naval Air Station Alameda Point.
Flames are burning structures at least three stories tall as firefighters work to contain the blaze.
A tall, dense column of smoke is rising from the fire, visible as far south as San Leandro.
Word from the scene by Eli Rosseter:
We're sitting at Jack London Square and it's pretty much the center third of our visual range.They have trucks with variable reach booms trying to spray water in, but it kind of looks hopeless, one of those situations where it's probably best to just try and keep it from spreading. I can see firefighters on the other rooftops...
The firefighters look like tiny bumps on the surrounding rooftops, in contrast to the flames and smoke. The firetrucks are all directing spotlights at the fire.
It looks like the fire found fresh material. It's moving northward across the block and sending up pretty black smoke.
There's a intense column of black smoke now. And now it's being blown towards Jack London Square. We can smell it now and we were just talking about whether there were toxins, but we don't know.
It smells like cresote-soaked wood. We're leaving now. It's too intense.
There's a strong sulphur smell.
The smoke and ashes are settling over Oakland. The streets look foggy.
UPDATE: Coverage from the San Jose Mercury News, the Oakland Tribune, and the Chronicle.
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Wow. I live in Alameda (albeit on the other side) and just woke up to see this. I had no idea. It does look pretty hazy outside.
San Jose Mercury New is reporting it was a 2-alarm that completely destroyed the abandoned hospital. Nice of the Chron NOT to report on it.
http://www.mercurynews.com/breakingnews/ci_12024237
They caught up = http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/03/29/BAQ916P4C1.DTL&type=printable
This fire did not take place on the former Naval Air Station Alameda. The former NAS did not have a hospital. This facility is (was) located near the Webster Tube, on former maritime-commercial land, some of which was used by the military and much of which has been redeveloped in the past 20 years. The former Navy base is not visible from Jack London Square.
When you leave the reporting to amateurs, you get amateur-level reporting and unreliable facts. This "reporter's" IM handle -- MrBungle44 -- is indeed appropriate. Hail "citizen journalists."
As for the ash, I live in the center of Alameda, and I found many bits of ash outside my house this morning.
Wow dude.
There's a vast difference between making a correction and being a giant douche.
So someone screwed up, big deal. This is not the end of the world, no need to get all self-important, self-righteous and douchetastic.
time spent commenting on blogs is time not spent flipping my burgers, journo. so, go make my lunch. thanks.
Thank you for your contribution. I will edit the story to reflect that.
The hospital was military, according to the San Jose Mercury News, the Oakland Tribune, and the Chronicle.
The fire was visible from Jack London Square, as evidenced by the photo.
Journalism by its very nature is a process of reporting the facts as well as possible at the time, refining the story as more information becomes known.
"MrBungle44" is my AOL instant messenger name. First set-up in 1994, it pays tribute to the band Mr. Bungle and to 49er fullback #44 Tom Rathman. After all these years, I still like the name.
While I appreciate the fact that you took the time to help us make story as accurate as possible, your attitude could stand to be kinder.
I'm sorry you live such an angry life.
Ah. A little Google-work shows that this guy refers to himself as a professional journalist, which makes sense, because professionals of any medium take their highly valuable time to critique the work of other news digests and/or organizations. Classy stuff.
I had a great dinner at Astaria in San Mateo last night, but that isn't really news either - oh wait this isn't Yelp.
Alameda smells like there was a fire recently, not sure if that is news either. I will be usurping "daouchtastic" and adding it to my own lexicon. That *is* news.
This place is more and more like Yelp with every passing day.
I rate this comment *** out of 5.