Damage was put at more than $5 billion, surpassing the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 as the costliest blaze in U.S. history. The fire roared out of control Sunday when a small blaze that firefighters thought was out flared up. It was declared contained, or surrounded, on Monday.
As officials calculated the damage and firefighters battled the last of the hot spots, Fire Chief Phillip Lamont Ewell defended his department's decision not to keep the original blaze under constant watch after it was believed to be out.
He and other Oakland fire officials also dismissed allegations that help from other departments wasn't called in soon enough.
"When you look at a situation from afar it's easy to second-guess what should have been done," said fire Lt. Mark Garcia.
Pushed by 25-mph winds across brush that had been dried by five years of drought, the blaze destroyed more than 1,800 houses and 900 apartments, city officials said.
At least 19 people were killed, 148 injured and 5,000 evacuated, said sheriff's Sgt. Robert Jarrett. Forty-nine people were reported missing, but Jarrett said some may be out of town or unable to contact friends or relatives.
"Until there's a dwelling-to-dwelling count nothing is sure," he said.
Deborah Campbell, spokeswoman for Mayor Elihu Harris, said the cost of the blaze was estimated at $5 billion.
The Great Chicago Fire caused an estimated $1.8 billion damage in 1990 dollars. It killed at least 300 people and left 90,000 homeless. The San Francisco earthquake and fire of 1906 caused $5.1 billion damage in 1990 dollars, and the Great Boston Fire of 1872 caused $815 million damage.
President Bush on Tuesday declared the fire site a major disaster area, opening the door to federal aid for the rebuilding.
The wooded area, with its postcard views of San Francisco Bay, was a disaster waiting to happen because of the drought, officials said. Many of the area's once-elegant homes were reduced to rubble, their bare chimneys looming like giant tombstones.
"The very thing that makes the wildlands attractive and romantic, like the trees, is what makes the wildlands deadly," said Forestry Department spokeswoman Karen Terrill.
Similar catastrophic fires could easily occur in many other brushy areas of the state, including the wealthy Marin County suburbs north of San Francisco or Southern California's Malibu Canyon, officials said.
The Oakland fire began with a seven-acre blaze that firefighters thought they had put out Saturday, officials said. Ewell, who became chief earlier this month, said it was standard procedure to keep firefighters on the scene of that blaze for most but not all of Saturday night.
There were also complaints that Oakland was slow to ask other fire departments for help when the blaze flared up late Sunday morning.
"Everybody was waiting and watching even to the point where the department senior staff were inquiring, `Have they called us yet?' " said Capt. Dave Moore of the San Jose Fire Department. He said San Jose wasn't asked to send special strike teams until about 3 p.m.
Meanwhile, residents who returned to their neighborhoods could do little more than look at the charred rubble that had once been their homes.
"I wanted my Mickey Mouse watch and the family photo album," said Elinor Freidman. "There's nothing left. It happened so quickly that there was nothing left to do but get in your car and run away from the embers."