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Group seeks to restore “Gingerbread” firehouse after recent fire

By CNN

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    OAKLAND, California (KPIX) — A group of visionaries are working to rebuild a historic Oakland landmark known as the “Gingerbread Firehouse” after a fire broke out at the 99-year old structure Tuesday night.

While the cause of the fire is unclear, the group hoping to bring life back to the abandoned building… is more motivated than ever.

“The thought that we can’t control this as a community and get rid of this kind of vandalism and danger, right in the midst of our community, has just redoubled my intense obsession to get this thing done,” Nancy Lehrkind told CBS News Bay Area.

Lehrkind was out of town when she found out about the fire at the former Montclair firehouse.

After securing a partial lease last year, she and her husband have been working with volunteers to transform it into the “Montclair Firehouse Arts Center” – a hub for local musicians, performers, and artists.

“We want this to be a place where the entire community can use it,” she said.

Built in 1927, no one has used the building since 1989, at least not officially.

“We have endlessly cleared beer bottles, weed packages, etc. etc. from the premises. So we really think we know who it is,” Lehrkind said.

“We have met them. I have been over there, unannounced. There they were, out there on the side yard. I’m like, ‘Who are you? What are you doing here? You’re trespassing. I have a lease for this. You need to leave.’ You know, they seem like 8th graders,” she added.

Other than the trash, there has also been graffiti, and when they tried putting in a security system, it was destroyed.

But after the fire, Lehrkind’s main concern is that it could’ve gotten out of hand. Behind the firehouse is a steep hill full of dry brush. Montclair Elementary isn’t too far away.

“I just don’t want to have that situation, that flammable situation still sitting there,” she said.

What started as an art center for Lehrkind is now also a matter of public safety. She’s in the process of obtaining the full lease.

For now, Lehrkind is hopeful. It also helps that most of the former firehouse is actually made of concrete, saving the building from the burning down.

“It’s a common misconception. Many people have thought this was made out of unreinforced brick, the whole building. But in fact, it was pretty state-of-the art in 1927,” she said.

Lehrkind said permits still need to pass through Oakland’s building department and landmark preservation board. Once approved, possibly by September, her nonprofit will look for volunteers to bring the arts center to life.

Please note: This story was provided to CNN Wire by an affiliate and does not contain original CNN reporting. This content carries a strict local market embargo. If you share the same market as the contributor of this article, you may not use it on any platform.

Blazes burning with the intensity of ‘atomic bombs’: Europe enters a new era of mega fires

By CNN
(CNN) — The vast blazes ripping through southwestern France burned so intensely they created a powerful, fire-generated thunderstorm. This rare phenomenon is sometimes seen in the kinds of megafires that afflict the US and Canada, but was unprecedented in France, until now — and it’s just one sign that Europe is entering a new fire era, experts say.Europe has always had wildfires, but they are becoming increasingly extreme as the climate crisis tightens its grip. Firefighters in France and Spain are currently trying to tame blazes more ferocious and more erratic than anything they’ve tackled before.This follows from Europe’s record-breaking fire season last year, with experts saying the continent is joining a long list of regions — from Siberia to the Amazon — which now endure back-to-back extreme fire seasons.“We have entered an era of fires that cannot be extinguished,” said Víctor Resco de Dios, lecturer of forestry engineering and global change at the University of Lleida in Spain. “These are fires that burn with the intensity of several atomic bombs.”🔥 CNN Weather app brings you climate news and local weatherWildfires in France have now scorched more than 116,000 hectares (roughly 290,000 acres), making them the largest on record for the country, and there are still months of wildfire season left.“The situation we face today is the hardest we’ve ever recorded, the hardest since the Second World War,” French President Emmanuel Macron said Monday on a visit to Bordeaux. He called the fires “totally unprecedented.”One of the most visceral examples of this was the appearance of fire clouds, or “pyrocumulonimbus,” which formed over the weekend in the Gironde region, near Bordeaux, according to fire authorities.Fire clouds emerge when particularly intense wildfires generate a plume of extreme heat, which rises rapidly into the cooler air above and condenses into towering thunderstorm clouds. These can create their own wind, rain and lightning and transform blazes into erratic and unpredictable self-feeding firestorms.The phenomenon is well documented in Australia, Canada and the US — the Los Angeles fires in 2025 produced a rare tornado, or firenado — but they are not at all common in Europe.The European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts said it could not yet say for certain this was France’s first pyrocumulonimbus. “However, if confirmed, its development would highlight the exceptional intensity of the current fire and the extraordinary atmospheric conditions under which it is burning,” said Francesca Di Giuseppe, fire forecast coordinator at the ECMWF.The scale of the fires is also remarkable, experts said. They have scorched huge tracts of land across France and Spain, both of which have requested EU assistance. “A synchronized, multinational wildfire crisis is rare in Europe,” said Stefan Doerr, director of the Centre for Wildfire Research at Swansea University in Wales.The fires are raging near major cities, including one which has torn through the mountainous province of Avila, west of the Spanish capital Madrid, and is now the country’s largest on record, authorities have said.“What is uncommon is the current number of destructive wildfires: fires that spread rapidly, overwhelm fire brigades and force communities to evacuate,” said Guillermo Rein, professor of fire science at Imperial College London. More than 300,000 people have been evacuated across the two countries so far.Complete suppression of fires of this magnitude is almost impossible until the fuel runs out or persistent rain arrives, no matter how many firefighting resources are mobilized, experts say.“In Australia, parts of the US and Canada, there is a general expectation and acceptance of out-of-control wildfires,” said Swansea University’s Doerr. “In Europe there is still a widely held notion that such fires can be entirely prevented.”Why are these fires so bad?Each wildfire is complex and unique and affected by many factors, including land management, terrain and firefighting resources. But extreme weather, made worse by climate change, has been a key driver of Europe’s fires, scientists say.Global warming is bringing stronger swings between wet and dry extremes. It’s a “whiplash effect,” said Matthew Jones, an independent research fellow at the School of Environmental Sciences at the University of East Anglia in England.Last winter was unusually wet in France and Spain, leading a surge in vegetation growth. Then the weather flipped. Since May, Western Europe has been roiled by a succession of brutal heat waves, which parched the landscape. This heat provided “the ‘crack of the whip’ in the whiplash effect, turning that dense vegetation into highly combustible fuel,” Jones said.As France and Spain brace for their fourth heat wave of the summer, there are fears it may exacerbate and already dangerous situation.‘Dantean scenarios’Extinguishing the current fires completely may take months, authorities have said, but their impacts will linger long after that.The hazardous, smoke-filled skies they produce are harmful to health. Pollution from wildfires is estimated to cause more than 100,000 deaths globally every year.There’s also the damage to economies. These fires are raging near major European cities, affecting tourist hotspots, wine-growing regions and vital defense hubs.More than that, they may change people’s relationship with the land they live on, now they find themselves under the constant threat of uncontrollable fires.Into the future, scientists say we should expect fires — in Europe as elsewhere — to become more frequent and more extreme as long as humans continue to burn fossil fuels and push up temperatures.“It’s difficult to predict how far things might go,” said Resco de Dios, “we will soon be unable to rule out Dantean scenarios like those seen in California or Australia, with fires or fire complexes reaching hundreds of thousands of hectares or even a million hectares.”The-CNN-Wire™ & © 2026 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.
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