Oakland fire crews still battling three-alarm warehouse fire

A three-alarm fire is burning at a warehouse near Interstate Highway 880 in Oakland on Monday morning, a fire battalion chief said. Crews initially responded at 8:28 a.m. to a report of an outside fire in the 2000 block of Solano Way and arrived to find it had spread to a warehouse at 1900 E. 12th St., an American Emperor construction supply building, Oakland Fire Battalion Chief Melinda Drayton said. Firefighters are battling the blaze defensively from outside the building because of the risk of collapse, and are also making sure flames do not spread to the south to a building under construction at East 12th Street and 20th Avenue, Drayton said.

She said no firefighters have been injured and “as far as we know, everyone is out of the building.”

The fire department is asking people to avoid the area because of the emergency response and poor air quality since the fire created a large plume of black smoke that was visible from much of the East Bay.