4 rescued after 2-alarm fire breaks out at historic UC Berkeley building

BERKELEY – Four people were rescued after a two-alarm fire broke out at a historic University of California, Berkeley building south of the main campus late Monday morning.

According to university officials, the fire was reported shortly before noon at the school’s Anna Head Alumnae Hall located on the 2400 block of Bowditch Street near Haste.

The four evacuees were all on the top floor of the building. Officials said no one was injured.

“When we arrived on scene there was four people out of windows that we had to extricate real fast, to get them out of there,” Berkeley Fire Chief Abe Roman said. “Luckily they were uninjured, we got to them in time and we were able to get them out.”

Firefighters were able to extinguish the fire around 1:40 p.m. According to officials, water used to contain the flames likely caused damage to the old building. The fire did not effect other campus buildings nearby.

Roman said it appears the fire started on the outside of the building and quickly spread inside and up into the rafters.

“It’s truly combustible-type material, its truly wood studs and, you know, everything’s wood in there, so it could burn readily, for sure,” the chief said.

All that wood is what makes this particular building unique, and in fact, historic. This is Channing Hall, built in 1892 by Anna Head, as part of a groundbreaking school for girls.

The school later moved to Oakland and merged with another to become the prestigious Head-Royce School.

Channing Hall has a legacy of its own. Built entirely of redwood, it is considered the first brown shingle building in Berkeley and helped launch the Arts and Crafts architectural movement in the Bay Area.

It was a style popular with the nature-conscious people of the day, many of whom owned rustic cabins in the mountains. Now, the city is filled with shingled buildings, mimicking the same style.

Channing Hall is owned by the University and currently houses its Institute for the Study of Societal Issues and there have been concerns that the complex of historic buildings are falling into disrepair.

This fire doesn’t help matters, but the fire chief said a combination of a quick response and a retrofit of a modern sprinkler system probably saved this piece of Berkeley’s past.

“So, there is extensive damage, but not nearly as much damage as there would have been had the sprinklers not activated and if we had not had firefighting forces arrive here in a rapid time.”

The cause is under investigation.

John Ramos contributed reporting.