Oakland fire chief, criticized after Ghost Ship blaze, goes on leave
Oakland Fire Chief Teresa Deloach Reed — criticized for the Fire Department’s failure to inspect the Ghost Ship and thousands of other commercial buildings before the deadly blaze at the converted artists’ warehouse — has gone on leave.
“We haven’t seen her in over three weeks, and don’t know where she is or what’s going on,” said Zac Unger, vice president of the Oakland firefighters union, which has made no secret of its desire to see Deloach Reed replaced.
Landreth already has plenty on her plate, having been in charge of the Police Department since that agency underwent a management upheaval in June.
Mayor Libby Schaaf’s spokeswoman, Erica Terry Derryck, gave us the same answer we got from the city administrator’s office when we called about the fire chief: “The city does not comment on the leave status of employees.”
People who had been inside described it as a cluttered maze with jury-rigged electrical wiring.
Firefighters told us the department’s inspection bureau was chronically understaffed, and an Alameda County civil grand jury took the department to task in 2014, saying it wasn’t checking thousands of commercial buildings for fire safety violations.
After the fire, Schaaf called for a review of the city’s guidelines for inspecting warehouses and other properties like the Ghost Ship where people may be living illegally — or holding events without permits, such as the music show that was under way when the fire broke out.
Tensions between the chief and the community boiled over last month when Deloach Reed met with an Oakland hills citizens advisory group, where one member pressed her about a lack of inspections designed to prevent wildfires.