OAKLAND - The names of the victims of a catastrophic fire at a party have begun to emerge as friends and family members learned their remains had been recovered from the ruins of a warehouse-turned-artists collective in the Fruitvale district.

Authorities said at least 36 people died in the blaze that ignited late Friday but that by Sunday they had been able to positively identify only eight victims. They ranged in age from 17 to 35. Many were students, artists and musicians whose loss, loved ones said, will tear at the fabric of the Bay Area’s creative community.

Propane tanks used to heat an improvised shower. Exposed electrical wires covering a back staircase, rendering it unusable. An ever-changing cast of guests and residents who paid between $500 and $1,500 a month for spaces that were made livable with jerry-rigged generators, hot plates and space heaters.

Any one of these things could have sparked a fire that killed at least 33 people in an old warehouse that was not zoned or built for residential use. A criminal investigation opened by the Alameda County district attorney’s office will look at everything that went on under the roof at the building at 31st Avenue and International Boulevard in Oakland to get to the bottom of the deadly inferno.

“A transformer blew and caught on fire a week after I’d been there,” said a former resident of the Ghost Ship warehouse, Shelley Mack. “We had no electricity, so they were using generators and illegally hooking up” to Pacific Gas and Electric Co. power sources.

As the number of dead continues to grow, so do the questions about the Ghost Ship, the Fruitvale neighborhood conundrum that some described as a mecca for creativity and others saw as a chaotic firetrap run by a man who felt he was above the law and immune from the dangers so obvious to many visitors.

Alameda County District Attorney Nancy O’Malley has assigned a team of investigators to begin looking into the fire.

“The district attorney’s office has activated our criminal investigation team and the arson task force, which is led by our office, and we are working with the local law enforcement effort conducting the criminal investigation into this tragedy,” said Teresa Drenick, spokeswoman for the office.

Drenick would not comment on the target of the investigation. (Source: San Francisco Chronicle)

Story Date: December 5, 2016