Bay Area

Is the Bay Area Prepared for Major Wildfires?

As part of a Smart and Connected Communities project, funded by the National Science Foundation, the team is also developing virtual games that will help educate the public about wildfire readiness. The project is led by Kenichi Soga, the Donald H. McLaughlin Chair in Mineral Engineering and Chancellor’s Professor at Berkeley, and includes faculty collaborators from the Berkeley’s College of Engineering, College of Environmental Design and Rausser College of Natural Resources.

Published

10 months ago

January 25, 2025

Oakland Post

A screen capture from a prototype of a Bolinas evacuation video game created by UC Davis Professor Thomas Maiorana, showing a plume of wildfire smoke above a map of the Marin County town. Courtesy of Paola Lorusso.

A UC Berkeley-led team is using computer simulations to stress-test the region’s disaster preparedness and creating virtual games to educate the public about wildfire safety.

By Kara Manke
UC Berkeley News

As wildfires continue to rage in LA, many San Francisco Bay Area residents are asking themselves if a similar disaster could happen here — and, with haunting photos of abandoned vehicles in the Pacific Palisades still fresh in everyone’s minds, if vulnerable communities are prepared for a rapid evacuation and firefight.

Since 2022, a team of UC Berkeley researchers, in collaboration with scientists at UC Davis and UC Santa Cruz, has been creating highly detailed models of emergency response infrastructure in two Bay Area communities to answer questions like those.

These “digital twins” of Marin and Alameda counties will include communication networks, emergency services and physical infrastructure, as well as information about how different services are operated and managed. The goal of the project is to use these models to simulate wildfire evacuations under different scenarios and identify potential weaknesses.

To learn more about wildfire risk in the Bay Area and how simulations and “mini-games” can help the region prepare, UC Berkeley News spoke with Louise Comfort, project co-principal investigator, professor emerita and project scientist with the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering.

Firefighters work to contain a grass fire that broke out in the Oakland Hills on Oct. 18, 2024. Noah Berger/AP via UC Berkeley News.

UC Berkeley News: Are Bay Area communities at risk of experiencing wildfires as destructive as those currently impacting LA?

Louise Comfort: Absolutely. The Bay Area has a record of experiencing wildfire in the wildland urban interface, or areas where human development intermingles with undeveloped wildland or vegetation, approximately every 20 to 30 years. Bay Area communities have made major investments in training, preparedness and public education since the last major conflagration in 1991, but we have minor fires, such as the Keller Fire in Oakland on Oct. 20. 2024, relatively frequently. Fortunately, a well-trained Oakland Fire Department responded quickly to contain the Keller Fire, but wind-driven wildfire is a continuing threat to the region.

UC Berkeley News: Compared to L.A., does the Bay Area have any particular strengths or weaknesses when it comes to wildfire preparedness, in terms of susceptibility to severe fire, evacuation routes and communication, insurance coverage, etc.?

Louise Comfort: One strength is the emerging consensus among Bay Area cities that they need to collaborate to reduce wildfire risk, and further, that they need to engage residents in this shared task. There is a new regional agreement, formed just in March 2024, among a set of Bay Area jurisdictions to collaborate on wildfire risk reduction. It is called the East Bay Wildfire Coalition of Governments, with nine member jurisdictions and growing. This is an important step for local governments to pool knowledge, information, resources and plans to prepare for wildfires and other natural hazards to which all jurisdictions are exposed.

Bay Area cities are made vulnerable by structural limitations of their transportation network: four bridges, a BART train that runs part way around the Bay, limited roadways among the counties, and specific points of likely congestion. For example, if the Caldecott Tunnel is closed between Alameda and Contra Costa counties, or if the Richmond Bridge is blocked to the North Bay region, evacuation is quickly limited. Evacuation routes are problematic and dependent on other infrastructure systems, electrical power, communications, and gasoline distribution — all of which are vulnerable to wind-driven wildfire.

UC Berkeley News: The Smart and Connected Communities project is creating “digital twins” of two Bay Area cities to understand how they’d perform when evacuating during a natural disaster. What is a digital twin, and how will it help you understand the Bay Area’s preparedness for severe wildfire events?

Louise Comfort: A “digital twin” is a computational model of an existing urban community. It is intended to replicate technical systems of infrastructure, including road networks, water distribution systems and electrical and gasoline distribution systems. It also models how things flow through these different networks: how vehicles travel the road network, how water flows through the network of water pipes, and how electrical power and gasoline travel through their respective distribution systems. We are currently integrating these technical systems with the organizational systems that manage these functions.

The intent is to test out scenarios computationally that are too dangerous or costly to test in real time. We hope to identify the strengths and weaknesses of our present organizational, institutional, and technical infrastructures before an extreme event — wildfire, earthquake, tsunami, atmospheric river rainstorm or flooding — occurs, so we can anticipate possible scenarios for mitigating these risks or respond quickly to reduce the impact when they do.

Louise Comfort: UC Berkeley News: How do you hope to engage communities to build awareness of risks of preparation?

Louise Comfort: We have done a series of semi-structured interviews with community leaders, public managers, and administrators in public organizations, like schools, parks, and hospitals to identify networks of communication and collaboration within communities, as well as gaps in social interaction that limit full community response.

We are working with a talented team of computer scientists at UC Santa Cruz who have developed a series of “mini-games,” or simulated games that illustrate common dilemmas that people face when encountering a wildfire situation. Such simulations enable people to think through dilemmas before the wildfire occurs, identify alternatives for action in a specific context, and connect with neighbors in a shared task of enabling everyone to evacuate safely.

We hope to hold a public community meeting in late spring 2025 and invite people to come and play the games and give us feedback. We also will make the mini-games available for use in small groups, such as Fire Safe Councils, so members of a neighborhood group can play the game together and think about strategies of risk reduction for their neighborhoods.

UC Berkeley News: Could this model be applied to other disasters that threaten the Bay Area, like sea level rise, flooding or earthquakes?

Louise Comfort: Absolutely. The task is the same for any hazard — wildfire, earthquakes, flash floods, landslides — even if the specific actions may differ by hazard. It means recognizing the risk in a specific context, then determining what resources are available to an individual, household, neighborhood, municipality or county to reduce that risk. It means understanding the risk in one’s specific neighborhood and determining what options are available to manage that risk. These are practical steps that greatly increase a community’s capacity for collective action under threat.

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Oakland Post: Week of November 5 – 11, 2025

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of November 5 – 11, 2025

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November 7, 2025

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Oakland Post: Week of October 29 – November 4, 2025

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of October 29 – November 4, 2025

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Past, Present, Possible! Oakland Residents Invited to Reimagine the 980 Freeway

Organizers ask attendees coming to 1233 Preservation Park Way to think of the event as a “time portal”—a walkable journey through the Past (harm and flourishing), Present (community conditions and resilience), and Future (collective visioning).

Published

2 weeks ago

October 27, 2025

Oakland Post

Hundreds of residents in West Oakland were forced out by eminent domain before construction began on the 980 freeway in 1968. Courtesy photo.

By Randolph Belle
Special to The Post

Join EVOAK!, a nonprofit addressing the historical harm to West Oakland since construction of the 980 freeway began in 1968, will hold a block party on Oct. 25 at Preservation Park for a day of imagination and community-building from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Organizers ask attendees coming to 1233 Preservation Park Way to think of the event as a “time portal”—a walkable journey through the Past (harm and flourishing), Present (community conditions and resilience), and Future (collective visioning).

Activities include:

Interactive Visioning: Site mapping, 3-D/digital modeling, and design activities to reimagine housing, parks, culture, enterprise, and mobility.
Story & Memory: Oral history circles capturing life before the freeway, the rupture it caused, and visions for repair.
Data & Policy: Exhibits on health, environment, wealth impacts, and policy discussions.
Culture & Reflection: Films, installations, and performances honoring Oakland’s creativity and civic power.

The site of the party – Preservation Park – itself tells part of the story of the impact on the community. Its stately Victorians were uprooted and relocated to the site decades ago to make way for the I-980 freeway, which displaced hundreds of Black families and severed the heart of West Oakland. Now, in that same space, attendees will gather to reckon with past harms, honor the resilience that carried the community forward, and co-create an equitable and inclusive future.

A Legacy of Resistance

In 1979, Paul Cobb, publisher of the Post News Group and then a 36-year-old civil-rights organizer, defiantly planted himself in front of a bulldozer on Brush Street to prevent another historic Victorian home from being flattened for the long-delayed I-980 Freeway. Refusing to move, Cobb was arrested and hauled off in handcuffs—a moment that landed him on the front page of the Oakland Tribune.

Cobb and his family had a long history of fighting for their community, particularly around infrastructure projects in West Oakland. In 1954, his family was part of an NAACP lawsuit challenging the U.S. Post Office’s decision to place its main facility in the neighborhood, which wiped out an entire community of Black residents.

In 1964, they opposed the BART line down Seventh Street—the “Harlem of the West.” Later, Cobb was deeply involved in successfully rerouting the Cypress Freeway out of the neighborhood after the Loma Prieta earthquake.

The 980 Freeway, a 1.6-mile stretch, created an ominous barrier severing West Oakland from Downtown. Opposition stemmed from its very existence and the national practice of plowing freeways through Black communities with little input from residents and no regard for health, economic, or social impacts. By the time Cobb stood before the bulldozer, construction was inevitable, and his fight shifted toward jobs and economic opportunity.

Fast-forward 45 years: Cobb recalled the story at a convening of “Super OGs” organized to gather input from legacy residents on reimagining the corridor. He quickly retrieved his framed Tribune front page, adding a new dimension to the conversation about the dedication required to make change. Themes of harm repair and restoration surfaced again and again, grounded in memories of a thriving, cohesive Black neighborhood before the freeway.

The Lasting Scar

The 980 Freeway was touted as a road to prosperity—funneling economic opportunity into the City Center, igniting downtown commerce, and creating jobs. Instead, it cut a gash through the city, erasing 503 homes, four churches, 22 businesses, and hundreds of dreams. A promised second approach to the Bay Bridge never materialized.

Planning began in the late 1940s, bulldozers arrived in 1968, and after years of delays and opposition, the freeway opened in 1985. By then, Oakland’s economic engines had shifted, leaving behind a 600-foot-wide wound that resulted in fewer jobs, poorer health outcomes, and a divided neighborhood. The harm of displacement and loss of generational wealth was compounded through redlining, disinvestment, drugs, and the police state. Many residents fled to outlying cities, while those who stayed carried forward the spirit of perseverance.

The Big Picture

At stake now is up to 67 acres of new, buildable land in Downtown West Oakland. This time, we must not repeat the institutional wrongs of the past. Instead, we must be as deliberate in building a collective, equitable vision as planners once were in destroying communities.

EVOAK!’s strategy is rooted in four pillars: health, housing, economic development, and cultural preservation. These were the very foundations stripped away, and they are what they aim to reclaim. West Oakland continues to suffer among the worst social determinants of health in the region, much of it linked to the three freeways cutting through the neighborhood.

The harms of urban planning also decimated cultural life, reinforced oppressive public safety policies, underfunded education, and fueled poverty and blight.

Healing the Wound

West Oakland was once the center of Black culture during the Great Migration—the birthplace of the Black Panther Party and home to the “School of Champions,” the mighty Warriors of McClymonds High. Drawing on that legacy, we must channel the community’s proud past into a bold, community-led future that restores connection, sparks innovation, and uplifts every resident.

Two years ago, Caltrans won a federal Reconnecting Communities grant to fund Vision 980, a community-driven study co-led by local partners. Phase 1 launched in Spring 2024 with surveys and outreach; Phase 2, a feasibility study, begins in 2026. Over 4,000 surveys have already been completed. This once-in-a-lifetime opportunity could transform the corridor into a blank slate—making way for accessible housing, open space, cultural facilities, and economic opportunity for West Oakland and the entire region.

Leading with Community

In parallel, EVOAK! is advancing a community-led process to complement Caltrans’ work. EVOAK! is developing a framework for community power-building, quantifying harm, exploring policy and legislative repair strategies, structuring community governance, and hosting arts activations to spark collective imagination. The goal: a spirit of co-creation and true collaboration.

What EVOAK! Learned So Far

Through surveys, interviews, and gatherings, residents have voiced their priorities: a healthy environment, stable housing, and opportunities to thrive. Elders with decades in the neighborhood shared stories of resilience, community bonds, and visions of what repair should look like.

They heard from folks like Ezra Payton, whose family home was destroyed at Eighth and Brush streets; Ernestine Nettles, still a pillar of civic life and activism; Tom Bowden, a blues man who performed on Seventh Street as a child 70 years ago; Queen Thurston, whose family moved to West Oakland in 1942; Leo Bazille who served on the Oakland City Council from 1983 to 1993; Herman Brown, still organizing in the community today; Greg Bridges, whose family’s home was picked up and moved in the construction process; Martha Carpenter Peterson, who has a vivid memory of better times in West Oakland; Sharon Graves, who experienced both the challenges and the triumphs of the neighborhood; Lionel Wilson, Jr., whose family were anchors of pre-freeway North Oakland; Dorothy Lazard, a resident of 13th Street in the ’60s and font of historical knowledge; Bishop Henry Williams, whose simple request is to “tell the truth,” James Moree, affectionately known as “Jimmy”; the Flippin twins, still anchored in the community; and Maxine Ussery, whose father was a business and land owner before redlining.

EVOAK! will continue to capture these stories and invites the public to share theirs as well.

Beyond the Block Party

The 980 Block Party is just the beginning. Beyond this one-day event, EVOAK! Is building a long-term process to ensure West Oakland’s future is shaped by those who lived its past. To succeed, EVOAK! Is seeking partners across the community—residents, neighborhood associations, faith groups, and organizations—to help connect with legacy residents and host conversations.

980 Block Party Event Details
Saturday, Oct. 25
10 a.m. – 4 p.m.
Preservation Park, 1233 Preservation Park Way, Oakland, CA 94612
980BlockParty.org
info@evoak.org