Downtown Berkeley fire torches East Bay Media Center

A structure fire caved in the roof of the East Bay Media Center in downtown Berkeley and forced evacuations in nearby apartment buildings early Monday morning.

Callers reported the fire, on the 1900 block of Addison Street, around 3:15 a.m., Berkeley Fire spokesperson Dafina Dailey said in an emailed statement.

Police and firefighters found the media center “fully engulfed in flames,” with “a heavy amount of fire blowing out of the front and roof of the building” when they arrived, Dailey said. The media center runs media camps and workshops for teens, organizes the Berkeley Video Film Fest and rents out video editing systems and media hardware, according to its website.

The city called in the Pacific Gas & Electric Co. to shut off utilities. With 20- to 30-foot flames coming out of the roof and licking at nearby buildings, emergency workers “immediately” evacuated the two apartment buildings adjacent to the media center, Dailey said. There was nobody in the media center at the time.

As intense as the fire was, firefighters set to work from the outside of the building, using aerial ladders, water towers and large-diameter hoses, Dailey said.

Halfway through the 2.5-hour fire attack, “the rear section of the building’s roof collapsed, fanning more flames into the structure,” Dailey said. Nevertheless, BFD was “able to contain the fire without it breaching into adjacent structures,” though there were some scorch marks and cracked windows on nearby buildings, she said.

Once the fire was out, everyone who had left the apartment buildings was able to get back in, Dailey said. There were no injuries reported, and no estimate yet on the damage the fire caused. The cause of the fire is still under investigation.