A large fire in a residential building at the corner of 19th and Broadway in downtown Oakland injured three people Monday morning.
Dozens of firefighters rushed to extinguish the flames while traffic was blocked on Broadway between 17th and 20th streets. Residents were evacuated. The cause of the fire wasn’t immediately known.
Three people were injured by inhaling smoke and required hospitalization, according to the fire department. A firefighter also suffered a minor injury.
The San Francisco Chronicle reported that residents of the building said the fire alarms went off “at least once a month” and some of them ignored the initial alert.
A fire also broke out in the building in February 2024, injuring one person and displacing two residents from two apartments.
The five-story building damaged by the fire sits above BART’s 19th Street Station and houses a Thai restaurant and the Dope Era store. It used to house Oaksterdam University, the cannabis education instituation.
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Before joining The Oaklandside as News Editor, Darwin BondGraham was a freelance investigative reporter covering police and prosecutorial misconduct. He has reported on gun violence for The Guardian and was a staff writer for the East Bay Express. He holds a doctorate in sociology from UC Santa Barbara and was the co-recipient of the George Polk Award for local reporting in 2017. He is also the co-author of The Riders Come Out at Night, a book examining the Oakland Police Department’s history of corruption and reform.