California Transit Fire Sends Commuters Scrambling

OAKLAND, Calif. -- The fire responsible for shutting down BART service between San Francisco and the East Bay Thursday morning started just minutes after a security guard was attacked and forced to flee by three men at an Oakland construction site, according to the guard's employer.

Damage on the tracks leading to the West Oakland BART station -- which left thousands of commuters scrambling for another way to cross the bay -- was caused by a three-alarm fire reported shortly after 2 a.m. at a construction project nearby, at Seventh Street and Mandela Parkway.

The blaze broke out a five-story senior housing facility called Red Star Senior Apartments. About $250,000 in new doors to be installed at the 172,000 square-foot

site had been delivered recently, officials said.

It was not clear as of about 10 a.m. how the fire had started. However, just 15 minutes before the first flames appeared, a security guard patrolling the site had been chased away by three men who threatened him and made him fear for his life, said Kim Newbill, an office manager at Command International Security Services.

"He saw three people coming to the construction site who looked suspicious, coming from the Kirkham Street side," Newbill said. "They said to him, 'What are you doing here?' He told them to move along and at that point, one guy went to jump over the fence to get in."

One of the men brandished something in his hand, Newbill said, but the guard couldn't tell

for sure what it was and ran to a nearby Subway sandwich shop.

When he saw flames rising up from the site, about 15 minutes later, he ran back to the on-site trailer where his cell phone had been charging and called 911, Newbill said.

The wood frames of all five floors burned quickly and very hot, officials said. The heat was so intense that several nearby streetlights and street signs were melted.

Several hot spots remained by midmorning at the scene and arson investigators had not been able to fully explore the causes of the blaze. They did not rule out suspicious causes, especially because of the report of the security guard being attacked. Oakland fire officials are asking that anyone who might have seen something before the fire started to call investigators at 510-238-4031.

Commuting nightmare

The blaze resulted in a commuting nightmare that began early Thursday morning, as the West Oakland BART station was badly damaged and trains could not pass through the only entrance to the transbay tube connecting San Francisco and the East Bay.

BART's goal as of 8 a.m. was to reopen one track at the West Oakland station sometime in the afternoon, with both tracks reopened by 5 p.m., according to BART spokesman Jim Allison.

Crews will have to replace a section of the third rail between 350 and 400 feet long at the West Oakland station, Allison said. Thirty to 40 insulators holding up the rail were damaged in the fire, he added.

BART is testing a 34,000-volt cable that powers part of the station to ensure there are no shorts when power is restored, Allison said.

Traffic approaching the Bay Bridge was backed up during commute hours on all major East Bay routes: Highway 24 and interstates 80, 980, 880 and 580, according to the California Highway Patrol and commuter reports.

Westbound Highway 24 traffic approaching the Caldecott Tunnel backed all the way onto Interstate 680 in Walnut Creek.

Transit options

Ferry service from Alameda and Oakland to San Francisco was also badly impacted, commuters said. Internet traffic to the ferry service's website at www.eastbayferry.com was so strong it crashed the site, though the service phone number was still operating at 510-769-5500.

At the Fruitvale BART station, more than 100 commuters lined up to catch AC Transit transbay buses to get to San Francisco at 9 a.m., even though a bus had just departed. Two more buses arrived and began squeezing commuters on, but a line of commuters still remained.

Nick Le, a 25-year-old who works in Chinatown, was near the back of the line just after 9 a.m., though his shift was supposed to begin at 9:30. He said he had not heard of the BART closure before arriving at the Fruitvale BART station, but a commuter in line for the bus informed hi of the situation.

"I was just like, 'Whoa!'," he said. "I called my co-worker because my boss is in a meeting. I'm either going to be late or not go in. Hopefully, my boss calls back and tells me to stay home."

Marcus Hidalgo, a South Bay resident who works at a law firm in the Financial District, was behind Le even though he was supposed to be at work at 9 a.m. He, too, was hoping his boss would contact him and tell him not to bother coming in, as he had already driven from his usual BART stop of Fremont to Fruitvale to catch a bus, dealing with horrible traffic on Interstate 880.

"It was a parking lot on 880 the whole way," Hidalgo said. "I can't believe I subjected myself to this."

In downtown Oakland, about 100 displaced BART commuters waited in a line at an AC Transit bus stop near 20th Street and Telegraph Avenue. The line snaked around the block and some had been waiting for 90 minutes. Matthew, who didn't give his last name, was a student headed to Kaiser in San Francisco. "I don't think people have a choice," he said.

Mary Hartlund, a commuter who got on BART in Walnut Creek and got off at the 19th Street station in Oakland, was waiting in the long line, hoping to get to San Francisco. "I don't see any buses," she said. "It seems they don't have the number of buses going that they should. It's going to be a long day and the we have to figure out how to get back."

AC Transit was scrambling extra buses to help take some of the stranded commuters from the 20th Street stop as well as the MacArthur BART station, AC Transit spokesman Clarence Johnson said.

"We always have some extra capacity in the morning on our buses, so we're able to take up some of the load," Johnson said. However, he added, "I'm hearing our buses are pretty packed this morning."

Long lines of people were already waiting for buses at the MacArthur BART station by 6:30 a.m. One commuter wrote in a Facebook post that "the line for the bus at MacArthur looks more like the line at the Apple store the morning they released the iPhone 3!"

Oakland resident Monique Hill said she made it to her job at a San Francisco dental office just 15 minutes late after hopping on a bus across the bridge.

Would she take a bus again? "No, probably not," she said. "There was a line around the block at 20th Street (in Oakland). There needs to be more buses and bus lines."

BART trains coming from Fremont and Concord were turned around at the 12th Street station in downtown Oakland.

The Richmond-Fremont and Dublin/Pleasanton lines are still running. Dublin/Pleasanton trains are turning around at the Bay Fair station.

San Francisco riders are continuing to get service into the Embarcadero station.

Copyright 2012 - Contra Costa Times, Walnut Creek, Calif.

McClatchy-Tribune News Service