Nov. 28--Housecleaner Jane Blunck was dusting in a Montclair hills home when she heard a siren blaring outside.
At first Blunck, 48, of Richmond figured a fire engine was speeding to a fire. Then the engine's air horn started to blow. And blow. And blow.
After what felt like 15 minutes, she says, she looked outside.
"The fire truck couldn't go through because my car was parked there, and I realized they were asking me to move my car," Blunck said.
She had tucked her sedan into a tiny spot along the twisty, narrow road. She hurried out, moved the car and the firefighters roared past.
Cars could squeeze by, Blunck said, but it had not occurred to her that a hulking fire truck could not.
Longtime problem
Oakland's emergency managers say it's a problem they've been dealing with for some time. Since firefighters struggled to navigate narrow, crowded roads during the 1991 Oakland hills firestorm that killed 25 people and destroyed 3,000 homes, emergency workers have pleaded with hills residents to think about how and where they park.
"It is a problem," said Sue Piper, a retired city official turned emergency preparedness advocate. "It is a problem even when there isn't a fire. It is a problem even for the garbage trucks."
But a city audit released this month found that Oakland isn't doing enough to keep the hilly roads clear.
Firefighters blocked by a car have had to park their engine and run to the scene of a fire, the audit found, while fire inspectors often have trouble navigating even SUVs up the windy, crowded road.
Little enforcement
Parking enforcement officers rarely patrol the hills, the audit said, and firefighters and inspectors, who visit 26,000 properties in the hills each year, are not responsible for issuing parking tickets. The city, however, plans to study the idea of having firefighters issue parking tickets.
"I think that parking enforcement or the obstruction of roads may be seen as a hassle in the hills," said Courtney Ruby, the city's auditor. "We have to heed (the 1991 fire) as a great warning."
The Fire Department is mulling the addition of new parking restrictions, said Leroy Griffin, an assistant fire marshal. They include requiring everyone to park their cars facing downhill -- a downhill escape route. They also include limiting or banning parking on certain streets during severe fire alerts.
"It is easy if you are trying to back out and do a U-turn but if you get an entire block doing the same thing you get confusion," Griffin said.
It's unclear, however, whether added restrictions would help. Already some residents ignore some of the no-parking rules now in place.
'Informational' tickets
Barry Pilger, 64, who saw his home burn in 1991, is so frustrated by what he sees that he has started issuing his own "informational" tickets.
"We have the occasional neighbor who doesn't get it and literally they or their guests were parking right under the no-parking signs," he said.
Pilger used to call parking enforcement, but they didn't always show. Now he carries a dozen notes with him, ready to warn any neighbors who park in no-parking zones that tickets are expensive and that their car could block a fire engine.
"We slip that under a windshield wiper, and that almost always solves the problem," Pilger said.
Drivers who seem to have the most difficulty with parking in the hills are those who visit the area.
Megan Dyer, 33, a Hercules consultant who has appointments in the Oakland hills a few times a week, said parking is always a hassle.
Few parking spots
More parking restrictions "would definitely impact me," she said. "I know the spots where you can find a spot but if we didn't have access to come up here and park then I wouldn't be able to do this."
Parking is so difficult that Dyer said she arrived early for a meeting at a hills home just so she wouldn't have to compete for parking spots with colleagues who also were attending the meeting.
"I planned it well," she said.
Blunck, the housecleaner who inadvertently blocked the fire truck in Montclair, said she isn't sure she likes the idea of more parking restrictions. She cleans a lot of homes in the Oakland hills, and parking can sometimes be tough.
"Let's put it this way," she said with a diplomatic pause. "If people would use their garage to park cars, instead of, you know, a gym, then maybe there would be more parking."
Will Kane is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: [email protected] Twitter: @WillKane
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