Features

July 4 Calm, But Several Other Fires Keep City Firefighters Busy  

A blaze ignited by a discarded holiday party barbecue proved costly Friday for a Berkeley firm once chaired by the late PowerBar co-creator Brian Maxwell. 

Before it was quelled, the blaze had inflicted more than $2.1 million in damage, destroying the structure and all its contents, said Deputy Fire Chief David P. Orth. 

But if there had to be a fire, the timing couldn’t have been much better, said Tom Oliver, a former colleague at PowerBar under the Maxwell regime and president of Coolsystems, Inc. 

“We were planning to move in August, and this just speeds things up,” he said Thursday morning. 

The flames began after the grill, with coals still smoldering inside, was tossed into a trash bin next to the Coolsystems, Inc., warehouse at 929 Camellia St., said Deputy Fire Chief David P. Orth. 

The coals ignited the contents of the dumpster, and the flames quickly spread to the building. 

The call came in to the emergency switchboard at 7:01 p.m. and before the blaze was controlled at 8 p.m., 35 firefighters, including two chiefs, as well as 12 engines and trucks, were engaged in the battle. 

Units from other cities were placed on availability to cover any other fires that might have sprung up while all the city’s crews and trucks were battling the West Berkeley blaze, Orth said. 

No one was injured in the blaze. 

It was the second multi-million-dollar blaze in West Berkeley in eight days. The first, on June 28, did $2 million in damage to the Berkeley Repertory Theater’s scene shop at Fifth and Gilman streets, just two blocks from the scene of Friday’s fire. 

Theater officials announced Wednesday that the troupe’s production of Thornton Wilder’s Our Town will open as scheduled on Sept. 9, even though they’re still hunting for new quarters to make the sets. 

After selling PowerBar in March, 2000, for $375 million, Maxwell remained active in the Berkeley business community after he acquired Coolsystems, a company started by NASA space suit designer Bill Elkins, who wanted to apply extraterrestrial design to terrestrial problems. 

Coolsystems GR Accelerated Recovery technology uses high tech cooling units similar to those used by astronauts for treatment of sports injuries—both human and equine—and to ease symptoms of multiple sclerosis. 

“It’s a particularly appropriate name at the moment, since we’re making an accelerated recovery after the fire,” Oliver said. 

The cooling units, which also speed healing by periodically increasing pressure on injured joints, have been adopted by more than 68 professional teams (including the Eagles, Nets and Giants), 118 universities, and 320 individual pro athletes (including Warren Sapp and Corey Maggette) have purchased systems, said corporate, said Dax Kelm, a Jackson Hole, Wyoming, publicist retained by Coolsystems. 

The U.S, Olympic Training Centers, Navy SEALs and the San Francisco Ballet are Game Ready users, and athletes can get Game Ready treatments at physical therapy clinics across the country, he noted.  

Major investors include retired professional football players, including former San Francisco 49ers Steve Young and Jerry Rice, former Seattle Seahawks quarterback Warren Moon, former Dallas Cowboys quarterback Troy Aikman, Buffalo Bills and Washington Redskins defensive end Bruce Smith and former Buffalo Bills quarterback and 1996 GOP Vice Presidential candidate Jack Kemp. 

Oliver said the fire—which did most of its damage in just ten minutes—won’t affect business operations. The Camellia warehouse contained only a few items of inventory. 

The lion’s share of equipment is still at the manufacturing plant,” Kelm said. 

The corporate spokesperson also said that while the company’s computers were destroyed by the fire, all the data was safely backed up in off-site units, so ordering and other business functions are continuing and the phone system is up and running. 

One reason for the minimal impact was that Coolsystem’s lease was running out and the firm was preparing to move. 

Oliver had been completing negotiations on a vacant plant at the northeast corner of Fulton Street and Dwight Way, where a reporter caught up with him Thursday morning. 

“We’ve been doing very well,” Oliver said. “We had record sales in June of both our GR and GRE models”—the “E” stands for equine. “That set us up for a record second quarter.” 

Fortunately, insurance will cover the losses, and Oliver and his team will be moving into their new home as soon as all the necessary signatures are one the lease. 

“It’s just a matter of days,” he said. 

Tilden Park fire 

Berkeley firefighters were called in at 7:06 p.m. Saturday to help East Bay Regional Parks District crews battle a brush fire that scorched a half-acre of brush and eucalyptus near the Tilden Park merry-go-round. 

The blaze was quickly controlled, and parks district investigators are working to determine the cause, said Berkeley Deputy Fire Chief David P. Orth. 

Burning pit 

Berkeley avoided the usual spate of July 4 fireworks blazes, but that didn’t stop someone from igniting a pole vault pit at UC Berkeley’s Edwards Field. 

The fire, which started about 11 p.m., did an estimated $35,000 in damage. 

Second hills blaze 

A belated burst of celebration in the wee hours of Tuesday morning did lead to a fire that consumed nearly four acres of grassland near the Lawrence Hall of Science. 

The fire, reported at 3:33 a.m., resulted in a second alarm before the fire was fully controlled at 4:07 a.m., said Orth. Had the fire happened a month later when vegetation will be drier, the fire could’ve posed a major threat to homes, he said. 

Burned out bottle rockets were found at the scene. 

Stuart Street fire 

Just four minutes after firefighters extinguished the hills blaze, they were dispatched to 1633 Stuart St., where they arrived to find a tenant trapped in his second-floor unit by a blaze on his porch. 

Firefighters were able to extract him through a window, but not before the fellow had burned his hand on an unexpectedly hot front doorknob. 

Damage was estimated at $5,000, Orth said. 

Third fire in two hours 

The morning’s third fire was reported at 5:16 a.m., sparked by a floor furnace in a residence at 2419 Bonar St. The fire was quickly quenched and cause little damage. 

Fence fire 

Berkeley firefighters rushed to 2222 Durant Ave. at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday where they arrived to find a fence on fire that was scorching the outside of an apartment building and sending smoke inside, disrupting the tenants. 

The fire was extinguished without incident, leaving the fence in serious repair and the building needing a touchup.