Flame and Fortune in the American

West: Urban Development,

Environmental Change, and the Great
Oakland Hills Fire Gregory L. Simon
Visit to download the full and correct content document:
https://ebookmass.com/product/flame-and-fortune-in-the-american-west-urban-develo
pment-environmental-change-and-the-great-oakland-hills-fire-gregory-l-simon/
The publisher gratefully acknowledges the generous support of the
Valerie Barth and Peter Booth Wiley Endowment Fund in History
of the University of California Press Foundation.
Flame and Fortune
in the American West
critical environments: nature, science, and politics
Edited by Julie Guthman, Jake Kosek, and Rebecca Lave
The Critical Environments series publishes books that explore the political forms
of life and the ecologies that emerge from histories of capitalism,
militarism, racism, colonialism, and more.

1. Flame and Fortune in the American West: Urban Development,

Environmental Change, and the Great Oakland Hills Fire, by Gregory
L. Simon
2. Germ Wars: The Politics of Microbes and America’s Landscape of Fear,
by Melanie Armstrong
Flame and Fortune
in the American West
urban development, environmental
change, and the great oakland
hills fire

Gregory L. Simon

university of california press

University of California Press, one of the most distinguished university
presses in the United States, enriches lives around the world by
advancing scholarship in the humanities, social sciences, and natural
sciences. Its activities are supported by the UC Press Foundation and by
philanthropic contributions from individuals and institutions. For more
information, visit www.ucpress.edu.

University of California Press

Oakland, California

© 2017 by The Regents of the University of California

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Cataloguing-in-Publication data on file at the Library of Congress.

isbn 978-0-520-29280-2 (cloth ; alk. paper)

isbn 978-0-520-29279-6 (paper ; alk. paper)
isbn 978-0-520-96616-1 (ebook)

Manufactured in the United States of America

25 24 23 22 21 20 19 18 17
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
For Dimitri and Gabriel

In honor of all who experienced loss and trauma

from the Oakland Hills Fire
Preface

As I write this, nearly 150,000 acres of California are burning. Over ten
thousand firefighters are responding to twenty-one active fires and count-
ing. More than thirteen thousand people are under evacuation advise-
ment and over six thousand structures are currently threatened. These
numbers seem to rise with each news cycle. Governor Jerry Brown has
just issued a state of emergency and is mobilizing the National Guard to
assist in the statewide disaster response. The largest of these fires at the
time of writing is the Rocky Fire, a 65,000-plus acre blaze (over 100
square miles) burning in the Lower Lake area north of San Francisco. One
firefighter, a thirty-eight-year-old father of two, has died battling the Frog
Fire farther north near the Oregon border.
According to Governor Brown, California’s acute and persistent
drought conditions have “turned much of the state into a tinderbox.”
Indeed the flammable nature of California could not be clearer than it is
from my current vacation vantage point looking across Lake Tahoe near
the California/Nevada border. The lake’s shoreline is separated from the
soaring ridgeline and blue sky by a thick strip of grayish smoke. This hazy
dividing line between water and sky is a by-product of several fires burn-
ing in nearby “tinderbox” environments of the Sierra Nevada foothills and

ix
x preface

higher-elevation forests. But while these fires rage on and obscure my

view of Lake Tahoe, I quickly remember that California and the American
West have always had fires. Episodes of drought are not uncommon. And
even during times of normal precipitation, fires periodically sweep
through landscapes—sometimes burning thousands of acres at a time. In
this way much the West has been (and will for the foreseeable future be)
a so-called tinderbox.
Sitting at the lake’s edge I am reminded of what makes this fire sea-
son—like each preceding year—seem so unique and urgent, particularly
given the region’s historically active fire regime. The answer is simple:
people like me, and the millions of others who visit, live, own, build, plan,
develop, and market property in traditionally fire-prone areas like Lake
Tahoe. These groups and individuals are the driving force turning histori-
cally recurring fires into devastating fire disasters. Our policies, planning
decisions, and cultural preferences generate these fire risks and the mas-
sive human and economic costs that accompany them.
Although the prevailing narrative on fire is that flammable (or “tinder-
box”) environments are somehow produced by forces greater than our-
selves—a by-product of years of drought, for example—the truth is that
suburban and exurban homes, residents, and the development forces
behind them are not merely victims of the unassailable forces of nature.
Rather, humans assist in the creation of environments where fires become
seen as negative, detrimental, and disastrous. It is because of human
activity that landscapes historically subject to fire are now viewed as a
victimized tinderbox. To be sure, this is a contradictory position, as we are
creating the conditions we actively fear, resist, and attempt to mitigate. It
is true that climate change and persistent drought are currently making
matters worse. But a review of media reports, such as those covering the
current fire season in the West, makes clear that society’s ravenous appe-
tite to develop these historically high-risk areas is frequently let off the
hook and exonerated from responsibility. In the pages ahead I argue that
this is a disingenuous, costly, and dangerous game to play.
Acknowledgments

This book would not have been possible without the help of countless
individuals, too many to list here, who influenced the project in important
and profound ways. My parents and sister gave incredible amounts of sup-
port over many years and decades, all of which instilled in me a sense of
commitment, confidence, and curiosity to see this project to completion. I
am grateful to Dylan for her steadfast encouragement and support
throughout the project, including travel periods and writing days both
long and short.
This project would not have come to fruition without members of the
Tunnel Fire community as well as other fire victims in the region who took
time to peel back and revisit often difficult memories in order to shed light
on life before, during, and after hazardous fire events—Jesse and the
entire Grant family in particular, whose original home still lives vividly in
my memory. Thanks to Vicky for taking the lead with the adorable barbar-
ians throughout this period. Many local and state fire service members
must be thanked for providing key and provocative insights.
I acknowledge Christine Erikson for her companionship, good humor,
and immensely refined and adaptive interviewing chops while in the field,
particularly for material that appears in Chapter 5; Peter Alagona, Matthew

xi
xii acknowledgments

Booker, and Robert Wilson for their insights during early stages of this
project at Stanford’s Bill Lane Center for the American West; and Peter too
for sharing many miles of trail-inspired conversation and smoky scenic
overlooks in the Sierra Nevada. Thanks also to Richard White and David
Kennedy for their support during this time, and Richard too for continued
support over nearly a decade, including introducing me to the Spatial
History Project at Stanford University. Thanks to Zephyr Frank and others
with the Spatial History Project for their support of the Vulnerability-in-
Production project. Many students supported this research and most of the
heavy geospatial lifting. This project truly would not be where it is today
without the impressive and inspiring work of CU Denver and Stanford stu-
dents. These include Kathy Harris, Allie Hausladen, Tyler Kilgore, Emily
Kizzia, Eric Ross, Alejandra Uribe, Melissa Wiggins, and others.
The staffs at the Bancroft Library at UC Berkeley and the Oakland
Library History Room were extremely helpful throughout this project.
Several members of the geography departments at UCLA and UC Berkeley
provided incisive feedback, which pushed my thinking about the affluence-
vulnerability interface. Thanks also to Stephanie Pincetl and others at
UCLA’s Institute of the Environment and Sustainability for their generos-
ity over the last several years. The Yale School of Forestry and Environmental
Studies community also offered helpful comments during this time. Sarah
Dooling made invaluable and challenging comments that pushed this
project intellectually in new and exciting directions. So too did Tim Collins
and many others who contributed to the book Cities, Nature, Development:
The Politics and Production of Urban Vulnerabilities. I owe considerable
thanks to the entire faculty in the Geography and Environmental Sciences
Department at CU Denver for providing the resources, work environment,
and friendships required to complete this project. I am grateful to Julie
Guthman, Jake Kosek, and Rebecca Lave for including this book in the
Critical Environments book series. Last but certainly not least, I want to
thank Merrik Bush-Pirkle and the entire staff and editorial group at UC
Press for skillfully guiding this project through to completion.
Contents

Preface ix
Acknowledgments xi

Introduction 1

part i flame and fortune in the american

west: an introduction to the incendiary
1. The 1991 Tunnel Fire: The Case for an Affluence-
Vulnerability Interface 11

2. The Changing American West: From “Flammable

Landscape” to the “Incendiary” 39

part ii illuminating the affluence-

vulnerability interface in the
tunnel fire area
3. Trailblazing: Producing Landscapes, Extracting
Profits, Inserting Risk 55

4. Setting the Stage for Disaster: Revenue

Maximization, Wealth Protection, and Its Discontents 71

5. Who’s Vulnerable? The Politics of Identifying,

Experiencing, and Reducing Risk 89
part iii how the west was spun: depoliticizing
the root causes of wildfire hazards
6. Smoke Screen: When Explaining Wildfires Conceals
the Incendiary 109

7. Debates of Distraction: Our Inability to See

the Incendiary for the Spark 130

part iv after the fire: the concomitant

expansion of affluence and risk
8. Dispatches from the Field: Win–Win Outcomes
and the Limits of Post-Wildfire Mitigation 149

9. Out of the Ashes: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism

and Financial Opportunism 168

Conclusion: From Excavating to Treating

the Incendiary 185

Notes 209
References 227
Index 239
Introduction

Early afternoon has arrived in a swirl of charcoal skies and brown haze.
Wind-whipped orange embers soar hundreds of feet in the air. Most are lost
from sight, enveloped and extinguished by the suffocating column of smoke
billowing and spilling over the ridgeline directly in front of me. Other glow-
ing embers drop from the sky out of view into a canyon or atop a ridgeline,
the fate of these sparks forever lost to the fire. Out of the sky fluttering
debris—black and gray wisps that appear like burned bits of newspaper—
drizzle steadily downward. Like the first signs of winter snow these softly
falling objects portend a larger storm on its heels: a soothing aesthetic bely-
ing its violent source searing just over the hilly crest to my north.
I am standing alone in a large five-way intersection one block uphill
from my childhood home—a 1940s, two-story, wood-shingled home nes-
tled into one of the many densely vegetated canyons populating this
coastal hill range in Oakland, California. A large eucalyptus tree twists
upward from the middle of the intersection. It is a tree I have seen a thou-
sand times before. But today it looks different. The single, thick-trunked
eucalypt typically looms like a sentient guardian over the neighborhood;
at this moment, in the eerie, grayish-yellow glow, the tree looks isolated,
helpless, and unsuspecting. A sudden gust rustles leaves and bark litter at

1
2 introduction

its base, sweeping them onto and then off its golden escarpment as if to
nudge the eucalypt—a subtle warning of an impending tempest.
As I quickly turn and jog back downhill, my breath runs deeper, not
because of the physical activity but because of a building sense of anxiety
and fear. I now realize it is not the eucalypt that feels isolated and help-
less; those scattered, wind-blown leaves and bark fragments have stirred
up my own unease. Moving quickly now, with each breath I smell the pun-
gent and heavy scent of a chaotic and disorderly fire, a calamitous concoc-
tion of burnt, woody, and sickly sweet odors that could only be produced
by a wildfire burning indiscriminately through backyards, bedrooms, and
basements. The smell is at once all wrong and all too real. My family is out
of town and a distressing weight of responsibility and panic sets in. As I
arrive at the house, my anxiety deepens. Will my family’s home, our
belongings, our cat—will I myself—contribute to this terrifying smell and
wind up falling gently from the sky like ominous snowflakes onto other
nervous, clambering residents?
The increasingly chaotic environment outside fades away as I enter my
home and close the front door behind me. Misty is sleeping on the couch,
her nose tucked under her front paw; she is sweetly oblivious to the calam-
ity unfolding outside. I sit for a moment, gently petting her gray coat, and
ponder how I came to be in this wildly unfamiliar and improbable predica-
ment. Earlier that morning I had driven two friends home from my par-
ents’ house. I traveled north to drop off a friend near the Oakland/Berkeley
border and then proceeded to my second friend’s house in North Berkeley.
Returning home through the UC Berkeley campus toward Oakland, I
noticed a subtle dimming of the sun overhead. This was a strange sight as
the sky was clear and cloud-free when I departed the house an hour earlier;
it had been the kind of warm, sunny morning that is typical during late fall
in the San Francisco Bay Area. This sudden reduction in solar radiation
was startling, as was the hazy, attenuated nature of the sunlight hitting my
windshield. Turning east toward the East Bay hills, I noticed a large col-
umn of smoke rising toward the sky. Unaware of the source and, more
importantly, the seriousness of the situation, I continued to drive home.
Now sitting on the couch—the winds outside whipping through the red-
wood tree—I realize that the hazy sunlight on my windshield had been a
dystopian exhortation from the hills above, an ominous sign reaffirmed by
 introduction 3

the smoky view from the solitary eucalypt on the hilltop. Though still unsure
about the source or full extent of the storm, I begin to contemplate my next
move. Just then a blaring police siren and bullhorn ring through the win-
dow behind me. Turning to look I can see a policeman standing outside of
his vehicle directly in front of the house, his uniform whipped by unyielding
winds careening downhill from the fire. He is holding on to his sunglasses
and yells into the bullhorn, “If you are still in your home you must evacuate
now!” I jump off the couch and head outside through the backdoor.
Walking into my backyard I scan above for signs of danger, as the sky
overhead seems the best and most reliable indicator of my precariousness.
Beyond a row of pines I am able to look north toward the source of the
fire. To my relief I do not detect any flying embers in the wind-whipped
mixture of haze and smoke. From one or two blocks up the road I hear the
same police warning, along with some voices coming from behind my
backyard gate. These sounds are followed by slamming doors and a car
engine, which quickly fades away. More voices. Then more car doors. Then
the sound of yet another car backing out of its driveway and speeding out
of the neighborhood. I pass through the back gate toward these sounds
and am elated to see my best friend, Jesse, across the street emerging from
his own home. We share a brief adrenaline-filled conversation, which
shifts quickly from “Can you believe this?” to “We need to do something!”
Overhead a high layer of smoke continues to gather and circulate. As we
stand in the middle of the street between our two homes, several pieces of
white debris, similar to what I had witnessed up the hill only minutes earlier,
now fall from the sky. It appears the fire and its swirling detritus are getting
closer. Suddenly an elderly lady approaches, waving her arms. Clearly in a
panic she describes her inability to get her infirm husband out of their house.
We follow her home where we pass a car in the driveway. The backseat is
packed full—a number of unclosed boxes bulge and protrude from under-
neath a neatly placed checkered blanket. The passenger door is open but the
passenger seat remains empty. Down the steps, in the front doorway, her
husband is sitting in a wheelchair, helpless and unable to ascend the roughly
twenty stairs leading to the car. Jesse and I run down to his side. He is frail
in clothes that no longer fit his gaunt frame. Sliding our arms under his lap
from either side, we clasp hands and lift his body, with surprising ease, up
and out of the chair. He gently places his arms around our shoulders but is
4 introduction

too weak to hold them there. They slide down our backs and dangle at his
sides. Leaning together to hold him in place, Jesse and I hoist him up the
steps toward the open car door. We gently maneuver him into the front seat.
As we walk back, we hear the now familiar sounds behind us: doors slam-
ming, a car starting, and an engine fading quickly up the road.
Despite the menacing warning signs we decide to walk past our homes
and up the hill toward the source of the fire. We make it one hundred feet
or so when we are stopped in our tracks by a disturbing view. Whereas the
intersection at the top of the hill had previously revealed a high blanket of
swirling smoke and gently falling debris, this same location is now
enshrouded in a much darker mass of gray. As we peer one block up the
road through the smoky clouds, an even more troubling site emerges:
faint wisps of bright, flickering orange stretch, bend, and retract with the
swirling winds. No longer just a vantage point for viewing the source of
the smoke, our neighbors’ homes have now become the source of smoke.
We head back down the hill and are confronted by Jesse’s father, who
proclaims urgently that embers are now dropping in their backyard. As
Jesse and his dad head up their driveway, I overhear comments about
checking for water pressure and spraying down the property. I figure I
should do the same and head across the street to my house where I pick up
a hose neatly coiled next to the garage. I turn the faucet and wait. A few
gurgles later a small pool of water gathers slowly at the nozzle of the hose
and pours gently over its edge. I check the line for knots but don’t find any,
so I turn the hose on all the way. The water bubbles again, this time spill-
ing over the top. I press my thumb over the nozzle to coax more water
pressure but this only amounts to a lazy one-to-two-foot stream of water—
not nearly enough to reach the wood shingle siding above me, let alone the
wood shake rooftop thirty feet overhead.
I abort the watering mission and start recoiling the hose. Debris is now
flying downhill away from the fire, picking up speed and whipping past
structures and swaying branches. An occasional red ember drops and
weaves its way through the airborne debris, landing and bouncing errati-
cally along the road. As I finish with the hose, the same patrolling police
officer races up the road. He gets out of the car with an incredulous and
angry look. He tells me to leave immediately. Do not pack anything. Just
get my keys and go. I ask if I can run inside and get my cat. Growing irri-
 introduction 5

tated, he tells me to hurry and says he is going to wait until I come out of
the house before leaving. I race inside to grab my keys, scoop up my cat,
and put her in the cat box. I do not take anything else.
Cat in hand, I turn one more time toward the house. I peer up at the
redwood, the coast live oak, and the pittosporum, all standing guard
over my family’s home. It is as though I am seeing this scene as well as
recording it. I am overcome with a sudden sense of resignation: this will
be the last time I have this view. I imprint on the scene for a few more
seconds and then get in the car. Slamming the door, I start the engine and
drive hastily away.
That evening, removed from my front-row seat, I follow the news on
television from my grandmother’s house across the bay in San Francisco.
Sitting together in her kitchen we flip between TV news channels covering
the now massive blaze. At one point we watch a familiar-looking structure
engulfed in flames. A news crew must have moved behind the safety perim-
eter to record this small piece of the devastation. We recognize the shape
and front entrance of the house before the news reporter confirms our sus-
picions and describes his crew’s position on our street; the burning home in
question sits directly across the street and to the south of my family’s home.
On the other side—directly to the north—is Jesse’s house, whose backyard
was catching fire when I left. I decide to call his home number, thinking that
might reveal a clue about the home’s fate. Sure enough, instead of getting a
ring, busy signal, or answering machine, I get an empty dial tone and an
abrupt click. As much as my heart wants to believe otherwise, it appears
that Jesse’s home with its wood shingle exterior and solid redwood interior
suffered a similar fate. Given the position of our home between these two
burning properties, we are all quite certain of a similarly ruinous outcome.
Arriving at this sobering conclusion, we head to the airport to pick up
my parents who are arriving from out of town. After several minutes of
anxious waiting at the gate, we finally greet them as they exit the jet-way.
Expecting a curbside pickup they seem rather confused by our presence at
the gate. My grandmother calmly tells them to sit down. And with all the
subtlety of a sixteen-year-old I blurt out, “Mom, Dad. Umm . . . I’m pretty
sure our house burned down.” They receive this information as well as can
be expected—disbelief, a profound sense of sadness, relief for my safety,
and a lingering hope that perhaps our calculations are wrong. Needless to
6 introduction

say, although we all go to bed that evening, nobody is sleeping. I for one lie
wide awake, fixating on how I failed to take a single item—save the cat—
from the house. No pictures. No keepsakes. No passports or emergency
files. It feels as though I just failed a crucial life test.
Assuming the worst, the next day I sneak through established disaster
perimeters to see the full extent of the fire’s damage. As I emerge over a
ridgeline, the harsh and startling reality of the previous day’s devastation
unfolds in front of me (see Figure 1 for partial aerial view of destruction).
Protruding chimneys, stripped bare and exposed to their grayish founda-
tion, like tombstones in a cemetery, cover the landscape. Many trees are
singed to the branch and trunk. Nearly every home is gone. The fire had
moved in capricious ways, however, sparing arbitrary structures along the
way. From my vantage point atop the ridge I am able to peer into a small,
intact basement closet—the remainder of the house is lost. Through the
closet’s open door a stark white dress shirt hangs unbothered against the
pallid background.
Looking farther south, I scan cinereous slopes and valleys for the ruins
of my family home. It is difficult to pinpoint exactly where I am looking,
as nearly every identifying landmark has been wiped off the now collapsed
and scorched landscape (see Figure 2). Growing more disoriented, my
gaze locks on to a familiar-looking structure below. Can it really be? Is
that . . . what I think it is? To my shock the home I left hastily a day earlier
remains fully intact alongside a neighbor to each side. Inexplicably the
surrounding blaze never ignited the home’s wood-shingled rooftop and
sidings. This unfathomable discovery is too good to be true; I am over-
joyed to see the structure and all our possessions in one piece. This eupho-
ria is quickly lost to the sight of smoldering ruins all around, including our
neighbors’ and friends’ homes forever lost to the now extinguished wild-
fire. Red embers falling into my friend’s backyard had indeed spread to his
home. And the news footage of our neighbor’s house ablaze on television
did not lie. The surrounding damage is so extensive, in both severity and
scope, that for a moment I do not know which direction to leave the neigh-
borhood. I later learned that the first friend I had dropped off the previous
day was evacuated from his home within an hour due to fast-moving
flames. A couple of hours later his house had burned to the ground along
with all of the neighboring homes.
Figure 1 (top). Looking east: an aerial panorama captures a portion of the Tunnel
Fire area. The blaze began near the upper left-hand corner of the image and stretched
out of view in all directions.

Figure 2 (bottom). Walking through the burn area revealed a neighborhood reduced
to a cinereous state, comprising charred vehicles, debris, vegetation, and chimneys.
8 introduction

In retrospect, at the time of the fire the source of the pyro-precipitation

and acrid aroma was unclear. While I recognized the situation as serious,
I did not (indeed, could not) appreciate that behind the churning and fast-
encroaching sallow mass of smoke lay a savage storm, with thousands of
cherished homes and memories left smoldering in its wake. Beneath this
foreboding curtain of smoke over two dozen lives were being lost.
Yet given the day’s conditions and the previous century of extensive
residential development, the outcome of the 1991 Tunnel Fire was both
unsurprising and in many ways inevitable. This is the nature of much of
California and the American West: we can see fires without seeing the fires.
They are coming. They will continue to come. Our past and ongoing land-
use planning decisions—premised on profitable suburban and exurban
land development—will see to that.
On that fateful Sunday afternoon a thick charcoal veil concealed my
view of the Tunnel Fire. In much the same way a tenacious storm of devel-
opment and increased flammability rages behind a curtain of ongoing
political, cultural, and scientific debates about wildfires and their causes
and consequences. Hidden behind these debates are persistent suburban
growth trends and financial incentives that undergird an increase in fire
risk and mitigation costs around the region. The chapters ahead consti-
tute a political ecology of fire, bringing these processes into sharper relief.
The hope is that they will spark a renewed engagement with proactive
management approaches that directly confront the systemic causes of fire
risk.
part i Flame and Fortune
in the American West
an introduction to the incendiary
 1 The 1991 Tunnel Fire
the case for an affluence-
vulnerability interface

a fir es tor m f or the a ges:

th e oa kla n d hil l s (tu n n el) f ir e

The 1991 Oakland Hills Firestorm (henceforth Tunnel Fire) is perhaps the
most significant urban wildfire in United States history. Located in north-
eastern Oakland, California, and stretching northward into the city of
Berkeley and east into neighboring Contra Costa County, the Tunnel Fire
destroyed more than three thousand dwelling units and killed twenty-five
people over a twenty-four-hour period (see Map 1 and Map 2). The fire’s
origins were innocuous enough—a small brushfire that had burned and
been suppressed the previous day. The response to this small outbreak
had been extensive and decisive. Aware that flare-ups could occur
throughout the night, city fire crews were on high alert with water lines in
place.
A change in firefighter shifts early on October 20 forever changed his-
tory. Throughout the evening and into the morning the previous day’s fire
was stirring and smoldering beneath the singed surface. As new engines
moved back into the hills to treat the burn area, hot spots could be seen
igniting into flames all around. More support units were immediately

11
 Fairfield

Vallejo

San Rafael Concord

Berkeley
1991 Tunnel
Fire
Oakland
San
Francisco

Livermore
Hayward

Fremont

Mapped
area

Palo Alto

200 miles San Jose

Map 1. Location of the Tunnel Fire. (Credit: Peter Anthamatten)

 One Mile

.
ve
tA
Alameda

nyo t
on
Ca emon
Contra

n
m
University of County

are
Costa

r
Cla
California,

Cl
Berkeley County

BERKELEY

Claremont
Hotel Fire Origin
Ashby Ave.

l
Parkwoods n ne
e.

Tu
Av

Apartments
tt
co
nt

e
mo

ald
are

Tu C yon
nn
al Can
Cl

el
Ro esc
a Hiller Tem
d
Highlands

24
ay
hw Lake
Hig
te Temescal
W

Sta
arr

ce y
en
ay

Te dwa
College Ave

adw

Fre

oa
rra
ew

Br
Bro

ay

ce
erra
ay T
.

dw
on

a
Bro
ny
ive r Ca
Dr ontclai

OAKLAND
nh M
ill
or
Th

Fire extent
Roads
Moraga Ave.
County border

Map 2. The Tunnel Fire area extent, major land features, and fire origin. (Credit: Peter
Anthamatten)
14 the 1991 tunnel fire

called up, but they were soon overwhelmed. Strong winds happened to
pick up that morning, whipping through the hillside, quickly turning
small spot fires into a mass of fast-spreading flames. The fire ignited
nearby vegetation and began its steady march into adjacent residential
neighborhoods. The fire was both relentless and voracious, burning nearly
eight hundred structures in the first hour alone and more than three hun-
dred structures per hour over the next seven hours.1
Twenty-five years later, the Tunnel Fire has left a lasting legacy in the
region as the largest wildfire—in terms of numbers of dwellings
destroyed—in California’s history. To be sure, this is a dubious distinction
given California’s long record of frequent and intense firestorms.
The superlatives go on. The 1991 Tunnel Fire is the single most costly
wildland fire in modern U.S. history.2 In adjusted 2012 dollars the fire is
estimated to have generated $2.5 billion in losses. The next four largest
wildland fire losses range from $1.2 billion to $2 billion.3 To compare the
relative intensity of the Tunnel Fire with these other events consider the
following statistic: the Tunnel Fire burned just over 1,500 acres (2.3
square miles) while the next four most costly wildland fire events ranged
between 48,000 and 375,000 acres.4 With well over three thousand struc-
tures burned (the most in U.S. wildland fire history) in just 1,500 acres,
the severity and intensely “social” and “urban” nature of the fire is both
unmistakable and unparalleled.
Across the region, nation, and even internationally, the Tunnel Fire (or
“Oakland Hills Firestorm” or “East Bay Hills Firestorm” depending on
who is reporting) remains the urban wildfire reference point in U.S. his-
tory. While other large events such as the Chicago and San Francisco fires
are infamous for their scope, intensity, and devastation, they are consid-
ered strictly urban fires—not wildfires, which connotes a link to adjoining
“wild” open space. The notoriety of the Tunnel Fire as a “worst-case sce-
nario” wildfire sparked substantial changes to firefighting protocols in
departments and agencies across the United States.
The Tunnel Fire’s significance has much to do with its geography. The
fire area sits in a precarious location at the hilly edge of the core metro-
politan cities of Oakland and Berkeley, along the eastern side of the San
Francisco Bay. Much will be made of historical land use planning and resi-
dential development activities in these areas. However, three main char-
 the 1991 tunnel fire 15

acteristics should be highlighted up front. First, this is a wildland-urban

interface (WUI) area, meaning it resides at the interface between dedi-
cated urban developments and managed open space. Residential commu-
nities sit within and astride a landscape comprising dense forest cover,
woodlands, grasslands, and coastal scrub. These housing and wildland
landscapes have for many decades spread into each other, intermingling
to produce an environment notable for its high fuel load. The area is also
remarkable for its hilly terrain and steep canyons, which have the dual
effect of aiding fire spread while also hindering efforts to prevent and
respond to fire.
Second, it is a centrally located urban area, meaning it is not a new
subdivision at the periphery of the San Francisco Bay Area but rather a
century-old (and in some locations older) neighborhood containing high-
density residential housing and narrow roads that are characteristic of
older, core urban areas. (Of course, at the time of its development it was a
suburban enclave and so fits within historical and ongoing suburban leap-
frog sprawl patterns.) Beyond the adjacent swath of regional parkland and
state responsibility “wildland” areas lies even more urban, suburban, and
exurban development. While this area was once considered a suburban
respite from the San Francisco grit and grind (and it does still retain those
characteristics), the suburban fringe has expanded outward for many
miles, cities, and even counties in all directions.
Third, the region sits within a Mediterranean climate that contains
long durations without precipitation. From 1981 to 2010, total rainfall
over the four-month period of June 1—September 30 averaged 0.39
inches, most of which typically precipitates from fog. Thus by the time
October arrives each year, the area is usually water deprived and com-
posed of dry tree cover, grasses, shrubs, and ground litter. Making matters
worse are periodic Diablo winds, which bring a dry, easterly airflow from
the hot Central Valley through the San Francisco Bay Area. These winds—
sometimes at speeds of up to 60 mph—increase fire risk by further desic-
cating the land environment and significantly increasing the spread
potential of small spot fires. These are the winds that reignited remnant
embers and turned the previous day’s seemingly innocuous ground fire
into the destructive and record-breaking Tunnel Fire. When viewing these
physical attributes in aggregate, we see that geography matters. The
16 the 1991 tunnel fire

Tunnel Fire area retains a level of home density indicative of core urban
neighborhoods (i.e., greater home exposure) while also having close prox-
imity to dense and flammable tree cover that is suggestive of settlements
at the urban fringe.
But it is the region’s history that makes the Tunnel Fire particularly
compelling as a subject of analysis. Dating back to 1900, the area’s fire
regime indicates a high frequency of wildfires in the Oakland Hills region.
Between 1900 and 1991, for example, twelve fires were recorded in close
proximity to the area consumed by the Tunnel Fire. This includes major
fires in 1923 and 1970 that swept through much of the same area eventu-
ally seared by the Tunnel Fire. Some homes burned and rebuilt during
earlier fires were again destroyed in the 1991 blaze. This long history of
persistent conflagrations raises serious questions about urban develop-
ment, land use planning, and resource management efforts that have sig-
nificantly increased fire risk by placing tens of thousands of homes in
already fire-prone landscapes (see Map 3). This is a development trend
that produces social risks while simultaneously increasing the costs of
reducing social vulnerability. Indeed it is a profoundly contradictory posi-
tive feedback loop—intentionally producing an undesirable and costly
outcome. But it is also a process that holds an internal logic driven by a set
of underlying incentive-based economic structures. It is precisely this
structural logic that this text intends to excavate and highlight.
The Tunnel Fire presents an opportunity to thread a consistent narra-
tive and distinct reference point throughout the book. The Tunnel Fire is
also a unique case and the histories, processes, events, and lessons that
emerge from the Oakland and Berkeley hill areas do not translate neatly to
other regions of California and the West. It is therefore important not to
overstate the explanatory power of this single event when evaluating issues
such as the causes and implications of fire risk across the entire region.
(For example, over three thousand units destroyed in only 1,500 acres is
simply unmatched in modern U.S. history.) On the other hand, what hap-
pens in Oakland does not stay in Oakland. As we will see, social risks, eco-
nomic opportunism, fire mitigation policies, scientific debates, and basic
fire behavior all (in most instances) transcend political and environmental
boundaries. The Tunnel Fire therefore provides a useful starting point
for analysis and a critical source of information from which larger lessons,
 1961

Contra Costa
Alameda County
County

1923
1946

BERKELEY

1970
1937
1991
Tunnel fire
1929
1955

1940
OAKLAND

1933

1960
1933 1991

Roads 1968
County border

0 0.5 1 1.5 2

Miles

Map 3. Periodic fires in the East Bay hills over the past century reveal the persistent threat
of conflagrations. (Credit: Peter Anthamatten)
18 the 1991 tunnel fire

perspectives, and theories can be developed. It also provides a geographical

mooring for an otherwise expansive, complex, and seemingly unwieldy set
of social-ecological entanglements. The Tunnel Fire is thus leveraged as a
means of engaging with in-depth historical and contemporary analysis—
grounded in place—that prevents the text from producing an overly synop-
tic, superficial, or fragmentary analysis. Throughout, the book zooms in
and out, shifting between close readings of events and landscapes in the
Tunnel Fire area and important developments and trends in other regions
of the West. This multigeographical approach (which admittedly retains a
strong emphasis on the Tunnel Fire) enables the productive conjoining of
idiographic, descriptive, and place-based analysis with nomothetic, induc-
tive, and generalized interpretations.

u rba n dev el opmen t, natu re , a n d w i ld f i r e :

three critical insights

Fire at the urban periphery is a complicated matter, and understanding its

dynamic and complex social and environmental underpinnings is cer-
tainly no easy task. Efforts to fully comprehend how we come to know and
respond to the threat of fire are perhaps even more challenging. Given
these complexities, Flame and Fortune offers three principal insights
about the relationship between fire, society, and environment at the city’s
edge. By focusing on these critical insights, the book will in turn contrib-
ute to a single primary analytic objective: the need to augment assess-
ments of the wildland-urban interface with dedicated analysis of the afflu-
ence-vulnerability interface (AVI; see below) and the Incendiary (Chapter
3). Let us look briefly now at these three insights in turn.

Lucrative Landscapes at the Urban Periphery:

Taking Profits, Adding Risk

Suburban landscapes are lucrative landscapes. They are areas that gener-
ate high levels of profit, revenue, and wealth for interested parties near
and far. From early land use extraction activities to contemporary private
fire mitigation services, diverse groups extract profits from these regions,
 the 1991 tunnel fire 19

thus leveraging the suburban landscape as a source of prosperity and

increased affluence. These profit- and revenue-generating activities are
certainly not benign. Over time the generation of financial benefits has
coincided with the production and maintenance of risk and vulnerability.
This is the nature of urban growth under capitalism—it produces both
beneficiaries and discontented groups, simultaneously. Still further, in
many instances we see that one depends on the other: efforts to increase
affluence oftentimes necessitate elevating levels of fire risk, and higher
risk and vulnerability levels frequently spur opportunities to generate fur-
ther financial gains.
Factors influencing increased social vulnerability and higher fire risk
mitigation costs are inextricably tied to ever-changing profit-seeking
practices and diverse forms of economic opportunism. This is an impor-
tant foundational insight because it provides analytic space to reveal the
systemic causes of social vulnerability to fire, as well as the policies, prac-
tices, and perspectives that enable the development of these risky urban
landscapes. The 2016 Fort McMurray fire in Alberta, Canada, is a recent
example of a devastating wildfire impacting a region initially developed
for its ability to generate profits for government and corporate interests
alike. The area of Fort McMurray, which lies several hundred miles north
of Calgary, grew rapidly in population and size over the past several dec-
ades to support large-scale extraction of oil from an enormous subterra-
nean tar sands deposit. Like so many fires in the West, the pursuit of
resources and the conversion of landscapes were fundamental drivers of
this “hazardous” event.
Moreover understanding the root causes of fire risk is an important
first step toward substantively reducing future costs associated with pat-
terns of material accumulation and seemingly unfettered urban expan-
sion—as the old adage goes, “You have to understand the problem before
you can find the solution.” Directly confronting these past and ongoing
processes will require a rhetorical and tactical shift. It will entail ceasing
to treat portions of the American West as flammable landscapes (resulting
in management frameworks that merely treat development symptoms
at the WUI) and instead shifting to the treatment of the West as the
“Incendiary”—a regional depiction emphasizing the area’s history, founda-
tional characteristics, and underlying socioeconomic drivers that produce
20 the 1991 tunnel fire

elevated flammability; that is, viewing the landscape and the forces behind
its transformation like an arsonist that must be directly undercut, inten-
sively treated, and not merely adapted to.

The Persistent De- and Repoliticization of Fire and Its Production

Contemporary management and scientific discourses on fire depoliticize

the Incendiary and the political economic root causes of fire disasters.
Depoliticization refers to the process of stripping an issue or event of a
core political or controversial underpinning. This allows particular foun-
dational explanations of social-environmental change—in this context,
processes related to the affluence-vulnerability interface and its associated
controversies—to go unnoticed and unchallenged. In the case of wildfire
we oftentimes get distracted from key debates concerning the social
origins of fire risk by other management and science controversies.
We can understand these corollary or alter-debates as contributing to a
process of repoliticization, as a series of other contested issues come
to occupy the discursive arena of disagreement and dispute. This repoliti-
cization largely obviates substantive discussions of broader structural
issues and drivers. Concealing the role of private material accumulation
and urban growth regimes, for example, ultimately has the effect of ren-
dering wildland-urban interface fires as simply the natural order of things.
We are left tinkering around the edge of the problem, constantly putting
out little fires instead of grappling with the root cause of the major blaze
itself.
This analysis complements other studies that have examined the politics
of managing natural resources, landscapes, and disasters. Environmental
debates, for example, are often portrayed as proxy debates for broader dis-
agreements over the proper role of the government and free market, or the
importance of individual freedoms and private property rights.5 Arguments
over the fate of individual species, for example, serve as convenient and
tractable sites for engaging in, and ostensibly “settling,” these broader
debates. This text adds to this discussion by suggesting that not only are
broad debates fought in small arenas, but in fact the acrimony found in
these small arenas can distract us from addressing larger disagreements,
tensions, and contradictions. These alter-debates may actually prevent us
 the 1991 tunnel fire 21

from reconciling (and thus directly confronting) larger issues concerning

the political economic and social origins of fire risk.

Clarifying Vulnerability as a Dynamic, Variegated,

and Malleable Concept

Vulnerability is typically treated as a static condition and applied to house-

holds, communities, and cities in ways that oversimplify the complex
manner in which it is produced and experienced over time and space. In
Flame and Fortune vulnerability is shown to exist as both a process and a
condition. Expanding the ontology of vulnerability to include both these
aspects is important because it allows us to understand the complex rela-
tionship between different vulnerabilities as they unfold and interact spa-
tially and temporally. First, vulnerability is presented as a recursive and
relational process—embedded within regional environmental and devel-
opment histories—that is always in production, at play, and inscribed
unevenly over time and space. Vulnerability is thus much more than sim-
ply an effect of planning, produced outcome, or material inscription.
Factors causing increased vulnerability in one area may deepen (or main-
tain, or reduce) risks for individuals in another area or in subsequent time
periods. For example, socioeconomic conditions leading to increased risks
in hill areas of Oakland also contribute to elevated risks in the city’s flat-
land. Viewing different manifestations of vulnerability as merely isolated
conditions would foster a truncated and thus incomplete account of
important geographical and historical events and connections.
Second, vulnerability is variegated across space and is manifest in
unique ways within diverse households. Differentiating vulnerabilities
from one home to the next is important because it prevents the tendency
by many to overgeneralize (or simply ignore analytically) entire popula-
tions and their experiences with risk. This is particularly true in suburban
areas of the West that appear to be affluent and thus somewhat immune
to any substantive or acute form of vulnerability. Understanding that con-
ditions of vulnerability are distributed (and felt) unevenly between house-
holds renders such statements both erroneous and simplistic. In the
Tunnel Fire area, for example, the concept of variegated vulnerability
signifies that neighborhoods contain diverse households, each with
22 the 1991 tunnel fire

distinct biophysical settings, family histories, physical and emotional fra-

gilities, and financial resilience. This household-level heterogeneity winds
up influencing how homes and individual residents experience and
respond to the fire and its aftermath.

su pp lementin g the w il d l an d - ur b a n i n t e r fa c e
with the affluence-vulnerability interface

Together these three critical insights contribute to a single, larger analytic

objective: to explicate the benefits of an affluence-vulnerability interface
(AVI) approach to the study of society, nature, and wildfire. Currently
three capital letters, W-U-I, dominate public conversations concerning
the transformation of urban peripheries and the resulting increases in
residential exposure to (and costs of ) wildfires. The term wildland-urban
interface is one the most ubiquitous phrases circulating through the sub-
urban and exurban wildfire management discourse. It is the land designa-
tion used to connote the uneasy overlap of human settlements (composed
primarily of residential infrastructure) with traditionally undeveloped or
wild (and often already fire-prone) environments.
The wildland-urban interface is a rather recent concept and geographic
construct and is described by the National Wildfire Coordinating Group
as “the zone of transition between unoccupied land and human develop-
ment. It is the line, area, or zone where structures and other human devel-
opment meet or intermingle with undeveloped wildland or vegetative
fuels.”6 In fact the term was only formalized in federal policy as a distinct
area of interest in 1987—just four years prior to the Tunnel Fire. When the
U.S. Department of Agriculture presented its budget to Congress in
February of that year, it announced six new research initiatives. The sec-
ond of those initiatives was titled the “Wildland-Urban Interface.” This
area of emphasis called for increased public attention to areas where
urban settlements intermixing with wildlands contain “major problems in
fire protection, land use planning, and recreation impacts.”7
The WUI is actually one of two primary land designations at the urban
fringe. The other is the wildland-urban intermix. The interface is charac-
terized by greater home densities, with structures located adjacent or in
 the 1991 tunnel fire 23

close proximity to one another. As a collective unit these neighborhoods

press up against large, undeveloped open spaces. The intermix connotes
an area with greater distance between homes, where the home structures
themselves are embedded within surrounding wildlands.8 While the
interface landscape is dominated by homes, the intermix is composed pri-
marily of open or forested landscapes. Despite their differences both the
intermix and interface are conflated within a single WUI land designation
(see Figures 3 and 4).9 A precise and singular definition of what consti-
tutes an interface or intermix area remains elusive, and different studies
have used varying housing density thresholds to determine such designa-
tions. Whatever land attributes are used, in the context of fire it is gener-
ally understood that areas within a half mile of qualifying landscapes are
still considered part of the WUI as they are susceptible to the impacts of
swirling smoke and flying brands.
The establishment of a WUI land designation—despite its somewhat
malleable definition—is certainly not without policy consequence. This
designation has provided an easy-to-map and thus legible geographical
area supporting the structured implementation of a number of land use
and forest management practices. These include early efforts to extend
the U.S. Forest Service’s “fire exclusion paradigm” into developed areas
through dedicated fire suppression–based home protection10 and more
recent “Fire Adapted Communities” approaches premised on providing
activities that increase community education, preparedness, and resil-
ience to periodic fire events.11 The WUI has become a scrutinized land-
scape in part because it challenges conventional and binary nonurban/
urban and public/private land classifications. In an effort to reduce the
opacity, disorder, and novelty contained within these landscapes and in
order to achieve greater analytic and managerial clarity, the WUI has
emerged as a useful land classification—a conceptual container within
which we can study, interpret, and manage the messy and complex transi-
tion from nonurban to urban and public to private.

A Political Ecology of Fire

A shift in perspective is in order. Flame and Fortune argues for a move

away from the wildland-urban interface as the principal organizing
Figures 3 and 4. An all-too-familiar scene. Wildfires threaten homes in wildland-
urban intermix areas (top) and wildland-urban interface areas (bottom) of the
American West. Both settings fall under the broader category of the WUI, or
wildland-urban interface.
 the 1991 tunnel fire 25

framework guiding the management of wildfires at the urban periphery.

Instead the following chapters suggest the adoption of an affluence-
vulnerability interface approach. This political ecological shift promotes a
conceptual shift from the management of particular landscapes to the
management of social-ecological processes. From a management perspec-
tive this approach suggests that decision-makers pay greater attention to
the systemic causes of change, risk, and vulnerability—factors that are
quite often implicated in policies promoting increased wealth and profit
opportunities for stakeholders in urban and exurban settings. Analyzing
the AVI also means closely assessing the various ways the simultaneous
production of risk and profits is concealed within mainstream fire and
urban development discourse. This conceptual tack will entail a tight ana-
lytic interweaving of policies, social norms, economic incentives, and envi-
ronmental changes that produce both increased profits and increased
risks in areas currently recognized as the WUI.
Of course it would be unwise and irresponsible to just do away with the
WUI altogether. The wildland-urban interface can certainly function as
another useful organizing principle. Yet it does have its analytic limita-
tions. It characterizes a land designation and set of material conditions
that are grounded in a particular time and space. The WUI reflects socio-
ecological changes; it doesn’t produce them. (There are cases of course
where a WUI designation will itself do work in the policy realm, such as
with staggered insurance rates, but from a materialist perspective the
WUI is an artifact of land use policies and complex planning histories.)
And while it is possible for social-ecological transformations within the
WUI to be tracked and measured sequentially to convey change over time,
the inadequacy of the WUI as a concept lies in its inability by itself to
reveal the forces behind its own creation. The AVI, on the other hand, is
valuable for explaining complex economic, social, and environmental
drivers—across multiple spatial and temporal scales—that inform the
development of the WUI. Thus if we want to change the WUI (and not
just describe it or create policies that only address symptoms and not root
causes) then we need to supplement WUI analysis with dedicated, histori-
cal, and political economic AVI analysis. This marks a shift from the
management of wildland-urban interface areas to the management of
affluence-vulnerability interface processes.
26 the 1991 tunnel fire

scholarly f oundations and antecedents:

urban development, vulnerability, and hazard

This critical assessment of the Tunnel Fire and the concomitant produc-
tion of social vulnerability and immense wealth in Oakland and other
WUI areas of the American West is influenced analytically by a number of
political ecologists, environmental historians, and others in related fields.
There are simply too many formative and groundbreaking studies and
scholars to list here (though many are referenced in later sections). There
exist, however, a few productive research areas and trends that are central
to this book’s framing of development, vulnerability, hazard, and nature.
These indispensable contributions are briefly outlined in this section. One
notable area of scholarship comprises the incisive work of researchers
working diligently to illuminate the relationship between environmental
change, economic development, and social vulnerabilities in urban and
urbanizing areas. Many of these insights emerged during the mid-1980s
and early 1990s as researchers such Kenneth Hewitt, Diana Liverman,
and Ben Wisner critically identified how interactions between political
economies of resource use and normative planning activities came to
influence which places and populations become vulnerable.12 These and
other formative researchers spurred a whole new generation of scholars
and writers seeking to reveal the political and socially uneven ways in
which vulnerability is produced over time.13 Collectively these studies
have shown that effective vulnerability mitigation first requires studying
what Danish Mustafa labels dynamic “hazardscapes”14 through a form of
analysis described by Neil Adger as a robust assessment of “the cumulative
progression of vulnerability, from root causes through to local geography
and social differentiation.”15
Being able to define, describe, and deconstruct such hazardscapes in
urban and urbanizing environments requires that we first maintain a will-
ingness to dissolve the conventional binaries of human/nature and city/
rural in favor of dedicated relational geographic and historical analysis.
This requires embracing (1) the mutually constitutive relationship
between cities and diverse economies, policies, and ecological systems
across temporal and spatial scales;16 (2) the expansive ontological bound-
aries of urban nature, which as Bruce Braun notes exist as “material and
 the 1991 tunnel fire 27

narrated, ecological and political”17—implying that how we come to know

urban environments (in ways that are often politically motivated) is inti-
mately, and iteratively, connected to how we manage and experience them
(in ways that are often manifest inequitably); and (3) the idea that cities
are complex ecological systems governed to a large extent by an unremit-
ting commitment to economic growth.18 In this way, and following David
Harvey, a dialectical perspective (inclusive of the relationship between
capital, space, and nature) must be leveraged in order to reveal social and
environmental changes resulting from discursive and material social rela-
tions embedded in a capitalist system.19
The state of California and the American West more generally during
the mid-nineteenth to mid-twentieth centuries—characterized by rapid
economic expansion and massive population growth—represent precisely
this type of capitalist development environment. Accordingly many have
used the aforementioned political ecological framework (though not
explicitly naming it as such) to assess and illuminate trends in urban
growth and their social and ecological implications around the Golden
State and the West. These include texts such as Marc Reisner’s Cadillac
Desert: The American West and Its Disappearing Water; Gray Brechin’s
Imperial San Francisco: Urban Power, Earthly Ruin; and Stephanie
Pincetl’s Transforming California: A Political History of Land Use and
Development. Each of these groundbreaking texts describes institutions
and policies that have increased access to environmental resources in
order to facilitate economic development around the region—nearly
always with deleterious social and environmental consequences. One
need only look at influential texts such as Raymond Dansman’s The
Destruction of California and Samuel Wood’s California Going, Going
from the 1960s to see early concerns over the rise of capitalist develop-
ment imperatives and the production of ecological risks and social vulner-
abilities across sectors, populations, and geographies of the American
West. In the pages and chapters that follow I extend these important
insights to the persistent, controversial, and sobering matter of develop-
ment and wildfire in urban and urbanizing areas.
Vulnerability itself is a complex concept that has received considerable
attention from researchers in public and private sector settings, whether
in the context of wildfires or other precarious or threatening conditions
28 the 1991 tunnel fire

(be they political, economic, or ecological). Research clarifying the mean-

ing of vulnerability has been particularly helpful given the prevalence of
related concepts such as “risk,” “sensitivity,” “adaptive capacity,” and “expo-
sure.” Vulnerability is customarily understood as being constituted by a set
of conditions or experiences that are embodied by the subject in question.
For example, individuals without the social and financial resources to
absorb and respond to a wildfire (or an economic crisis, etc.) hold a high
level of vulnerability to that perturbation, even if exposure to the hazard
in question is more or less the same for multiple people. If two neighbors
have equal exposure to an impending wildfire sweeping over the ridge
above them—both occupy identical tract homes in the path of the fire—
each family will carry an equal risk of its home burning down. However,
the level of vulnerability will differ depending on each household’s sensi-
tivity, which may include disabilities or health impairments that influ-
ence how an external stress is experienced. Similarly, household vulnera-
bility reflects the level of insurance, rainy-day fund size, and available
resource base (from family and friends) that can be readily accessed in the
days and months after the fire. These may be understood as adaptive
capacity characteristics that may ease or challenge a household’s recovery
process.
Accordingly, Blakie, Wisner and colleagues summarize this perspective
and note that different households hold a unique ability to “anticipate,
cope with, resist, and recover from the impact of a natural hazard.”20 Early
political ecology analysis by Michael Watts similarly outlines the uneven-
ness of vulnerability as it is produced and manifest within and across dif-
ferent scales.21 Ray-Bennett follows suit and acknowledges that vulnera-
bility is unique, embodied, and differentiated between individuals and
communities, thus illustrating “why hazards affect people in varying ways
and why people experience disasters differently.”22 Throughout this book
vulnerability is defined as the potential for reduced well-being and lost
property or life, coupled with low and incommensurate levels of potential
financial reparation or other direct compensation. Risk is defined as the
likelihood of a region, location, home, or individual being exposed to the
adverse effects of fire and its associated negative externalities.
The pages that follow in this book offer much more than a narrative
focused on a single wildfire event. Rather the Tunnel Fire serves as an
 the 1991 tunnel fire 29

analytic starting point for a much larger (and longer) story demonstrating
the relationship between the production of vulnerability, wealth, and this
dramatic event. Crucial to this longitudinal study then is the understand-
ing that vulnerabilities shift, deepen, and in certain cases dissipate over
time. This perspective has been most evident in disaster environmental
histories such as Jared Orsi’s Hazardous Metropolis: Flooding and Urban
Ecology in Los Angeles, as well as in studies illustrating how access to deci-
sion making in planning influences the formation of vulnerable communi-
ties, a process effectively illustrated in Matt Gandy’s Concrete and Clay:
Reworking Nature in New York City. Perhaps most notable and relevant
here is the work of Mike Davis and his illustration of the cross-temporal
and multiscale production of social vulnerability in the Los Angeles area.
Here Davis develops an evocative narrative depicting LA as a site for ram-
pant development, where again and again “market-driven urbanization
has transgressed environmental common sense.”23 By integrating analyses
of the historical drivers of both social and environmental change, research-
ers such as Davis have shown that interactions between political econo-
mies of resource use and normative planning and management interven-
tions—across local to global scales—influence levels of social stratification
and ultimately which places and populations are made vulnerable.

slowing down the science, critically assessing

ch ange, a nd cha l l en gin g co n ve n t i o na l w i s d o m s

Critically assessing the affluence-vulnerability interface presents an oppor-

tunity to shift from what the Belgian philosopher Isabelle Stengers describes
as “rapid science” to “slow science.”24 Slow science marks a deliberate and
reflexive form of scientific inquiry and is a response to the increasingly rapid
nature of much research premised on producing as many findings in as
short a period as possible for the purpose of responding quickly to new
developments and meeting the extensive and expeditious data requests that
accompany private industry–driven knowledge demands. To be sure, there
is a need for fast science, particularly in the context of previously unforeseen
health crises and rapid environmental changes requiring new inquires and
the creation of quick policy recommendations.
30 the 1991 tunnel fire

But rapid science also has its drawbacks. It is largely a by-product of mod-
ern, neoliberal university and research structures requiring accelerated
publication and dissemination rates, that is, increased production and
efficiency outputs—from a quantitative standpoint—that are driven by
institutional budgets increasingly tied to research funding procurement
and publication rates. As a challenge to fast science (and neoliberal imper-
atives of production efficiency and knowledge immediacy) slow science
reflects on queries such as: Why are we asking certain questions? What
are the implications of these questions for various interest groups? Are
there concealed or opaque explanations to the problems we seek to address?
What questions allow us to unearth these alternative problem framings?
On the one hand, studying the AVI entails leveraging snapshot assess-
ments of places and populations (i.e., examining the WUI), which gener-
ates questions such as who is vulnerable, what does their vulnerability
look like, where are the most vulnerable groups located, and when do
groups experience elevated risk. These who, what, where, and when ques-
tions are indicative of (though by no means limited to) fast science
research that may seek to know, describe, and map the effects of fire
hazards in order to generate lessons learned and to reduce risks before
the next round of fires (or other perturbations) hit other, similar
communities.
On the other hand, studying the AVI entails—indeed necessitates—
embracing slow science. Slow science approaches to knowledge formation
are less influenced by rapid publication cycles, the rush to define direct
cause and effect, or structures of knowledge production shaped by private
or state interests.25 In contrast slow science concerns itself with why cer-
tain populations are vulnerable and how such conditions developed over
time. These how and why questions do not prevent researchers from
describing static conditions (who, what, where, when); they just present
researchers (as exemplified here) with an opportunity to augment fast sci-
ence research objectives with critical examinations of dynamic social and
ecological processes. Unearthing complex, variegated, and systemic causes
of vulnerability, and their relationship to affluence, can challenge norma-
tive conceptions of how risk and vulnerability are produced in diverse set-
tings—not only by understanding places better but also by understanding
complicated histories, knowledge networks, and spatial relations better.
 the 1991 tunnel fire 31

Indeed the past is prologue, and in order to develop solutions to contem-

porary fire-related problems we must first excavate their core foundations
and historical root causes.

fla me a nd f or tu n e: the path a he a d

Part I introduces the reader to important themes, places, and events

appearing throughout Flame and Fortune. Chapter 1 has described the
importance of an affluence-vulnerability interface (AVI) analytic approach
as a complement to more conventional WUI analysis, while also present-
ing important background information on the book’s primary case study
thread—the Tunnel Fire. Chapter 2 establishes a conceptual justification
for the implementation of an AVI approach to manage current and pro-
spective suburban landscapes—indeed a major characteristic of the West
is the immense amount of land currently still eligible for suburban and
exurban conversion. Along with this important land characteristic, the
chapter provides a synoptic view of the rapidly transforming West more
generally through a discussion of recent suburbanization, climatic, and
fire activity trends. Most importantly “the Incendiary” is introduced as a
metaphor for treating the suburban West like a troubled patient (an
arsonist) with deeply held and engrained behaviors and characteristics.
This chapter suggests that engaging the West as merely a flammable land-
scape is to confront symptoms of the Incendiary, while confronting the
Incendiary itself is to treat the essential character and core mechanisms
driving growth and social-environmental changes in high fire risk land-
scapes at the urban fringe.
Part II focuses on the historical development of the Oakland Hills area
(and eventual site of the Tunnel Fire). Chapters here use the Tunnel Fire
area to illustrate the complex nature of the Incendiary while also demon-
strating the benefits of an AVI-based analytic approach. Chapter 3 illumi-
nates how the production of vulnerability proceeds through—and is sup-
ported by—interconnected economic development and resource use
activities across city and regional scales. The chapter explores the connec-
tion between lucrative resource extraction, realty speculation, reforesta-
tion, and home construction activities in the Tunnel Fire area. These
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
will not signify a witch of Endor, when it must necessarily signify a
necromancer, which is as much against his tooth as the other? Nay
indeed this necromancer is also a witch or wizzard, according to the
definition produced above.
“The rest of the chapter being so inconsiderable, and I having been
so long already upon it, I shall pass to the next, after I have desired
you to take notice how weak and childish, or wild and impudent, Mr.
Webster has been in the interpretation of Scripture hitherto, in the
belief of his sage dames, to fence off the reproach of being termed
witches; whereas there is scarce one word in this place of
Deuteronomy that does not imply a witch or wizzard, according to
the real definition thereof. And truly he seems himself to be
conscious of the weakness of his own performance, when after all
this ado, the sum at last amounts but to this, that there are no names
in all the Old Testament that signifies such a witch that destroy men
or beasts, that make a visible compact with the devil, or on whose
body he sucketh, or with whom he hath carnal copulation, or that is
really changed into a cat, hare, dog, or such like. And to shew it
amounts to no more than so, was the task we undertook in this
chapter.
“But assure yourself, if you peruse his book carefully, you shall
plainly find that the main drift thereof is to prove, as I above noted,
that there is no such witch as with whom the devil has any thing
more to do than with any other sinner, which, notwithstanding this
conclusion of his a little before recited, comes infinitely short of: and
therefore this sixth chapter, consisting of about thirty pages in folio,
is a meer piece of impertinency. And there will be witches for all this,
whether these particulars be noted in them or no; for it was sufficient
for Moses to name those ill sounding terms in general, which imply a
witch according to that general notion I have above delivered; which
if it be prohibited, namely, the having any thing to do with evil
spirits, their being suckt by them, or their having any lustful or
venerous transactions with them, is much more prohibited.
“But for some of these particularities also they may seem to be in
some manner hinted at in some of the words, especially as they are
rendered sometimes by skilful interpreters: for ‫( מכשף‬Mecasseph,) is
translated by Vatablus, and the vulgar Latin Maleficus, by the
Septuagint φαρμακός, that is Veneficus: which word signifies
mischievously enough both to man and beast. Besides that
Mecasseph carries along with it the signification of transformation
also; and haply this may be the difference betwixt ‫ מכשף‬Mecasseph,
and ‫ מעונן‬Megnonen, that the former uses prestigious
transformations to some great mischief, as where Olaus Magnus tells
of those that have transformed themselves into wolves, to men’s
thinking, and have presently fallen upon worrying of sheep. Others
transformed in their astral spirit, into various shapes, get into houses
and do mischief to men and children, as I remember Remegius
reports. And therefore it is less wonder that that sharp law of Moses
is against the ‫ מכשפה‬Mecassephah; such a witch as this is, ‘Thou
shalt not suffer a witch to live;’ this may be a more peculiar
signification of that word. And now for making a compact with the
devil, how naturally does that name ‫ חובר חבר‬Chobber Chebber,
signifie that feat also? But for sucking and copulation, though rightly
stated it may be true, yet I confess there is nothing hinted towards
that so far as I see, as indeed it was neither necessary that the other
should be. But these are the very dregs, the fex magorum et
sagarum, that sink in those abominations, against which a sufficient
bar is put already by this prohibition in general by so many names.
And the other is filthy, base, and nasty, that the mention thereof was
neither fit for the sacred style of Moses’s law, nor for the years of the
people.
In my passing to the eight chapter I will only take notice by the
way of the shameless impudence of J. Webster, who in favour to his
beloved hags, that they may be never thought to do any thing by the
assistance of the devil, makes the victory of Moses, with whom the
mighty hand of God was, or of Christ, (who was the angel that
appeared first to Moses in the bush, and conducted the children of
Israel out of Egypt to the promised land) to be the victory only over
so many hocus-pocusses, so many jugglers that were, as it seems, old
and excellent at the tricks of Legerdemain; which is the basest
derogation to the glory of that victory, and the vilest reproach against
the God of Israel, and the person of Moses, that either the malicious
wit of any devil can invent, or the dulness of any sunk soul can
stumble upon. Assuredly there was a real conflict here betwixt the
kingdom of light and the kingdom of darkness and the evil spirits
thereof, which assisted the ‫ חרטמים‬Hartummim, the Magicians of
Egypt; who before that name is named, that no man may mistake,
are called ‫מכשפים‬, Mecassaphim, such kind of magicians as can
exhibit to the sight manifold prestigious transformations through
diabolical assistance, and are rendered Malificia by good
interpreters, as I noted above; that is, they were wizzards, or he-
witches. The self same word being used in that severe law of Moses,
‘Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.’ Are not these magicians then
examples plain enough that there are witches; that is to say, such
wretched wights as do strange miraculous things by the assistance or
consociation of the evil spirits?
“O no, says Mr. Webster, these are only ‫ חכמים‬Chacamim, wise
men and great naturalists, who all what they did, they did ‫בלהטיהם‬,
by their bright glittering laminæ, for so ‫ להטם‬forsooth must signifie.
But what necessity thereof that ‫ להט‬should signifie lamina? there is
only the presence of that one place, Gen. iii, 24. ‫להט חרב‬, where it is
‫ חרב‬only that signifies the lamina, and that of a long form, scarce
usual in those magical laminæ with signatures celestial upon them,
which J. Webster would be at; but ‫ הטם‬signifies merely flamma; so
that ‫ בלהטיהם‬by this account must signifie by their flames, if it be
from ‫ להט‬ardere, flammare: and therefore Buxtorfius judiciously
places the word under ‫ בלהטיהם‬abscondit, obvolvit, reading not
‫ בלאטיהם‬but ‫בלאטיהם‬, which is as much as to say, occultis suis
rationibus Magicis, which is briefly rendered in English, ‘by their
enchantments;’ which agrees marvellously well with ‫מכשפים‬
Mecassephim, which is as much as Præstigiatores Magici, or such as
do strange wonderous things in an hidden way, by the help of evil
spirits. But that the Egyptian magicians should do those things that
are there recorded of them in Exodus, by virtue of any lamels, or
plates of metals, with certain sculptures or figures, under such or
such a constellation, is a thing so sottish and foolish that no man that
is not himself bewitched by some old hag or hobgobling, can ever
take sanctuary here to save himself or his old dames from being in a
capacity, from this history in Exodus, of being accounted witches.
For if there may be he-witches, that is magicians, such as these of
Egypt were, I leave J. Webster to scratch his head to find out any
reason why there may not be she-witches also.
“And indeed that of the witch of Endor, to pass at length to the
eighth chapter, is as plain a proof thereof as can be desired by any
man whose mind is not blinded with prejudices. But here J. Webster,
not impertinently, I confess, for the general, (abating him the many
tedious particular impertinences that he has clogg’d his discourse
with) betakes himself to these two ways, to shew there was nothing of
a witch in all that whole narration. First, by pretending that all the
transaction on the woman of Endor’s part was nothing but collusion
and a cheat, Saul not being in the same room with her, or at least
seeing nothing if he was. And then in the next place, that Samuel that
is said to appear, could neither be Samuel appearing in his body out
of the grave, nor in his soul; nor that it was a devil that appeared;
and therefore it must be some colluding knave, suborned by the
witch. For the discovering the weakness of his former allegation, we
need but appeal to the text, which is this, 1 Sam. xxviii, v. 8.
‘And Saul said, I pray thee, divine unto me by the familiar spirit,
and bring me up whom I shall name unto thee,’ ‫ קסומי־נא לי‬that is, do
the office of a divineress, or a wise woman, ‘I pray thee unto me, ‫באוב‬
Beobh, by virtue of the familiar spirit, whose assistance thou hast,
not by virtue of the bottle, as Mr. Webster would have it. Does he
think that damsel in the Acts, which is said to have had πνεῦμα
πύθωνος, that is to have had ‫ אוב‬Obh, carried an aqua-vitæ bottle
about with her, hung at her girdle, whereby she might divine and
mutter, chirp, or peep out of it, as a chicken out of an egg-shell, or
put her neb into it to cry like a bittern, or take a dram of the bottle, to
make her wits more quick and divinatory. Who but one who had
taken too many drams of the bottle could ever fall into such a fond
conceit? Wherefore ‫ אוב‬Obh, in this place does not, as indeed no
where else, signifie an oracular bottle, or μαντεῖον, into which Saul
might desire the woman of Endor to retire into, and himself expect
answers in the next room; but signifies that familiar spirits by virtue
of whose assistance she was conceived to perform all those
wond’rous offices of a wise woman. But we proceed to verse 11.
“‘Then said the woman, whom shall I bring up unto thee? And he
said, bring me up Samuel.’ Surely as yet Saul and the woman are in
the same room, seeing the woman askt, ‘Whom shall I bring up unto
thee?’ and he answering, ‘Bring up unto me Samuel,’ it implies, that
Samuel was so brought up that Saul might see him, and not the witch
only. But we go on, verse 12.
 “‘And when the woman saw Samuel, she cryed with a loud voice;
and the woman spake to Saul, saying, why hast thou deceived, for
thou art Saul? Tho’ the woman might have some suspicions before
that it was Saul, yet she now seeing Samuel did appear, and in
another kind of way than her spirits used to do, and in another hue,
as it is most likely so holy a soul did, she presently cryed out with a
loud voice, ‘not muttered, chirpt, and peept as a chicken coming out
of the shell,’ that now she was sure it was Saul, for she was not such a
fool, as to think her art could call up real Samuel, but that the
presence of Saul was the cause thereof: and Josephus writes
expressly, Ὅτι θεασάμενον τὸ γύναιον ἄνδρα σεμνὸν καὶ
θεοπρεπῆ ταράττεται, καὶ πρὸς την ὄψίν οὐπλαγέν, οὐ σύ, φησὶν,
ὁ Βασιλεὺς Σαοῦλος; i. e. ‘The woman seeing a grave god-like man
is startled at it, and thus astonished at the vision, turned herself to
the king, and said, art not thou king Saul?’ Verse 13.
“‘And the king said unto her, be not afraid; for what sawest thou?
And the woman said unto Saul, I saw Gods ascending out of the
earth.’ The king here assures the woman, that tho’ he was Saul, yet
no hurt should come to her, and therefore bids her not be afraid. But
she turning her face to Saul as she spake to him, and he to her, and
so her sight being off from the object, Saul asked her, ‘What sawest
thou?’ and she in like manner answered, ‘I saw Gods,’ &c. For Gods, I
suppose any free translator in Greek, Latin, and English, would say,
δαίμονας, genios, spirits. And ‫ אלהים‬signifies Angels as well as Gods;
and it is likely these wise women take the spirits they converse with
to be good angels, as Ann Bodenham the witch told a worthy and
learned friend of mine, that these spirits, such as she had, were good
spirits, and would do a man all good offices all the days of his life;
and ’tis likely this woman of Endor had the same opinion of hers, and
therefore we need not wonder that she calls them ‫ אלהים‬Elohim,
especially Samuel appearing among them, to say nothing of the
presence of Saul. And that more than one spirit appears at a time,
there are repeated examples in Ann Bodenham’s magical evocations
of them, whose history, I must confess, I take to be very true.
“The case stands therefore thus: The woman and Saul being in the
same room, she turning her face from Saul, mutters to herself some
magical form of evocation of spirits; where upon they beginning to
appear and rise up, seemingly out of the earth, upon the sight of
Samuel’s countenance, she cryed out to Saul, and turning her face
towards him, spoke to him. Now that Saul hitherto saw nothing,
though in the same room, might be either because the body of the
woman was interposed betwixt his eyes and them, or the vehicles of
those spirits were not yet attempered to that conspissation that they
would strike the eyes of Saul, tho’ they did of the witch. And that
some may see an object, others not seeing it, you have an instance in
the child upon Walker’s shoulders, appearing to Mr. Fairhair, and it
may be to the judge, but invisible to the rest of the Court; and many
such examples there are. But I proceed to verse 14.
“‘And he said unto her, what form is he of? and she said, an old
man cometh up, and is covered with a mantle.’ He asks here in the
singular number, because, his mind was only fixt on Samuel. And the
woman’s answer is exactly according to what the spirit appeared to
her, when her eye was upon it, viz. ‫‘ איש זקן עלה‬an old man coming
up;’ for he was but coming up when she looked upon him, and
accordingly describes him: For ‫ עלה‬there, is a particle of the present
tense, and the woman describes Saul from his age, habit, and motion
he was in, while her eye was upon him. So that the genuine and
grammatical sense in this answer to ‘what form is he of?’ is this, an
old man coming up, and the same covered with a mantle, this is his
form and condition I saw him in. Wherefore Saul being so much
concerned herein, either the woman or he changing their postures or
standings, or Samuel by this having sufficiently conspissated his
vehicle, and fitted it to Saul’s sight also, it follows in the text: ‘And
Saul perceived it was Samuel, and he stooped with his face to the
ground and bowed himself.’
“O the impudent profaneness and sottishness of perverse shufflers
and whifflers! that upon the hearing of this passage can have the face
to deny that Saul saw any thing, and meerly because the word
‘perceived’ is used, and not ‘saw,’ when the word ‘perceived,’ plainly
implies that he saw Samuel, and something more, namely, that by his
former familiar converse with him, he was assured it was he. So
exquisitely did he appear, and over-comingly to his senses, that he
could not but acknowledge (for so the Hebrew word ‫ ידע‬signifies)
that it was he, or else why did he stoop with his face to the very
ground to do him honour?
 “No, no, says J. Webster, he saw nothing himself, but stood
waiting like a drowned puppet (see of what a base rude spirit this
squire of hags is, to use such language of a prince in his distress,) in
another room to hear what would be the issue; for all that he
understood, was from her cunning and lying relations. That this
gallant of witches should dare to abuse a prince thus, and feign him
as much foolisher and sottisher in his intellectuals, as he was taller in
stature than the rest of the people, even by head and shoulders, and
merely forsooth, to secure his old wives from being so much as in a
capacity of ever being suspected for witches, is a thing extremely
coarse and intolerably sordid. And indeed, upon the consideration of
Saul’s being said to bow himself to Samuel, (which plainly implies,
that there was there a Samuel that was the object of his sight, and of
the reverence he made) his own heart misgives him in this mad
adventure, and he shifts off from thence to a conceit that it was a
confederate knave, that the woman of Endor turned out into the
room where Saul was, to act the part of Samuel, having first put on
him her own short cloak, which she used with her maund under her
arm to ride to fairs or markets in. To this countryslouch in the
woman’s mantle, must king Saul, stooping with his face to the very
ground, make his profound obeysance. What was a market-woman’s
cloak and Samuel’s mantle, which Josephus calls διπλοΐδα ἱερατικήν,
a ‘sacerdotal habit,’ so like one another? Or if not, how came this
woman, being so surpriz’d of a sudden, to provide herself of such a
sacerdotal habit to cloak her confederate knave in? Was Saul as well
a blind as a drowned puppet, that he could not discern so gross and
bold an impostor as this? Was it possible that he should not perceive
that it was not Samuel, when they came to confer together, as they
did? How could that confederate knave change his own face into the
same figure, look, and mien that Samuel had, which was exactly
known to Saul? How could he imitate his voice thus of a sudden, and
they discoursed a very considerable time together?
“Besides, knaves do not use to speak what things are true, but what
things are pleasing. And moreover, this woman of Endor, though a
Pythoness, yet she was of a very good nature and benign, which
Josephus takes notice of, and extols her mightily for it, and therefore
she could take no delight to lay further weight on the oppressed spirit
of distressed king Saul; which is another sign that this scene was
acted bonâ fide, and that there was no cozening in it. As also that it is
another, that she spoke so magnificently of what appeared to her,
that she saw Gods ascending. Could she then possibly adventure to
turn out a countryslouch with a maund-woman’s cloak to act the part
of so God-like and divine a personage of Samuel, who was Θεῷ τὴν
μορφὴν ὅμοιος, as the woman describes him in Josephus Antiq.
Judaic. lib. vii. c. 15, unto all which you may add, that the Scripture
itself, which was written by inspiration, says expressly, verse 20, that
it was Samuel. And the son of Sirach, chap xlvi. that Samuel himself
prophesied after his death, referring to this story of the woman of
Endor. But for our new inspired seers, or saints, S. Scot, S. Adie, and
if you will, S. Webster, sworn advocate of the witches, who thus
madly and boldly, against all sense and reason, against all antiquity,
all interpreters, and against the inspired scripture itself, will have no
Samuel in this scene, but a cunning confederate knave, whether the
inspired scripture, or these inblown buffoons, puffed up with nothing
but ignorance, vanity and stupid infidelity, are to be believed, let any
one judge.
“We come now to his other allegation, wherein we shall be brief,
we having exceeded the measure of a postscript already. ‘It was
neither Samuel’s soul,’ says he, ‘joined with his body, nor his soul out
of his body, nor the devil; and therefore it must be some confederate
knave suborned by that cunning, cheating quean of Endor.’ But I
briefly answer, it was the soul of Samuel himself; and that it is the
fruitfulness of the great ignorance of J. Webster in the sound
principles of theosophy and true divinity, that has enabled him to
heap together no less than ten arguments to disprove this assertion,
and all little to the purpose: so little indeed, that I think it little to the
purpose particularly to answer them, but shall hint only some few
truths which will rout the whole band of them.
“I say therefore that departed souls, as other spirits, have an
ἀυτεξούσιον in them, such as souls have in this life; and have both a
faculty and a right to move of themselves, provided there be no
express law against such or such a design to which their motion
tends.
“Again, that they have a power of appearing in their own personal
shapes to whom there is occasion, as Anne Walker’s soul did to the
miller; and that this being a faculty of theirs either natural or
acquirable, the doing so is no miracle. And,
 “Thirdly, That it was the strong piercing desire, and deep distress
and agony of mind in Saul, in his perplexed circumstances, and the
great compassion and goodness of spirit in the holy soul of Samuel,
that was the effectual magick that drew him to condescend to
converse with Saul in the woman’s house at Endor, as a keen sense of
justice and revenge made Anne Walker’s soul appear to the miller
with her five wounds in her head.
“The ridged and harsh severity that Webster fancies Samuel’s
ghost would have used against the woman, or sharp reproofs to Saul;
as for the latter, it is somewhat expressed in the text, and Saul had
his excuse in readiness, and the good soul of Samuel was sensible of
his perplexed condition. And as for the former, sith the soul of
Samuel might indeed have terrified the poor woman, and so
unhinging her, that she had been fit for nothing after it, but not
converted her, it is no wonder if he passed her by; goodness and
forbearance more befitting an holy angelical soul than bluster and
fury, such as is fancied by that rude goblin that actuates the body and
pen of Webster.
“As for departed souls, that they never have any care or regard to
any of their fellow souls here upon earth, is expressly against the
known example of that great soul, and universal pastor of all good
souls, who appeared to Stephen at his stoning, and to St. Paul before
his conversion, though then in his glorified body; which is a greater
condescension than this of the soul of Samuel, which was also to a
prince, upon whose shoulders lay the great affairs of the people of
Israel: To omit that other notable example of the angel Raphael so
called (from his office at that time, or from the angelical order he was
adopted into after his death) but was indeed the soul of Azarias, the
son of Ananias the Great, and of Tobit’s brethren, Tobit, v. 12. Nor
does that which occurs, Tob. xii. 15, at all clash with what we have
said, if rightly understood: for his saying, ‘I am Raphael one of the
seven holy angels which present the prayers of the saints, and which
go in and out before the glory of the holy one,’ in the Cabbalistical
sense signifies no more than thus, that he was one of the universal
society of the holy angels, (and a Raphael in the order of the
Raphaels) which minister to the saints, and reinforce the prayers of
good and holy men by joining thereto their own; and as they are
moved by God, minister to their necessities, unprayed to themselves,
which would be an abomination to them, but extreme prone to
second the petitions of holy sincere souls, and forward to engage in
the accomplishing of them, as a truly good man would sooner relieve
an indigent creature, over-hearing him making his moan to God in
prayer, than if he begged alms of himself, though he might do that
without sin. This Cabbalistical account, I think, is infinitely more
probable, than that Raphael told a downright lye to Tobit, in saying
he was the son of Ananias when he was not. And be it so, will J.
Webster say, what is all this to the purpose, when the book of Tobit is
apocryphal, and consequently of no authority? What of no authority?
Certainly of infinitely more authority than Mr. Wagstaff, Mr. Scot,
and Mr. Adie, that Mr. Webster so frequently and reverently quoteth.
“I but, will he farther add, these apparitions were made to good
and holy men, or to elect vessels; but King Saul was a wretched
reprobate. This is the third liberal badge of honour that this ill-bred
advocate of the witches has bestowed on a distressed prince. First, a
‘drowned puppet,’ p. 170, then a ‘distracted bedlam,’ in the same
page, which I passed by before; and now a ‘wretched reprobate.’ But
assuredly Saul was a brave prince and commander, as Josephus
justly describes him, and reprobate only in type, as Ismael and Esau;
which is a mystery it seems, that J. Webster was not aware of. And
therefore no such wonder that the soul of Samuel had such a
kindness for him, as to appear to him in the depth of his distress, to
settle his mind, by telling him plainly the upshot of the whole
business, that he should lose the battel, and he and his sons be slain,
that so he might give a specimen of the bravest valour that ever was
atchieved by any commander, in that he would not suffer his country
to be overrun by the enemy while he was alive without resistance;
but though he knew certainly he should fail of success, and he and
his sons dye in the fight, yet in so just and honourable a cause as the
defence of his crown and his country, would give the enemy battel in
the field, and sacrifice his own life for the safety of his people. Out of
the knowledge of which noble spirit in Saul, and his resolved valour
in this point, those words haply may come from Samuel, ‘To morrow
shalt thou and thy sons be with me,’ (as an auspicious insinuation of
their favourable reception into the other world,) in ‫סחיצחצדקימ‬, in
thalamo justorum, as Munster has noted out of the Rabbins.
 “Lastly, as for that weak imputation, that this opinion of its being
Samuel’s soul that appeared is Popish, that is very plebeianly and
idiotically spoken, as if every thing that the Popish party are for, were
Popish. We divide our zeal against so many things that we fancy
Popish, that we scarce reserve a just share of detestation against
what is truly so: Such as are that gross, rank and scandalous
impossibility of ‘transubstantiation,’ the various modes of fulsome
idolatry and lying impostures, the uncertainty of their loyalty to their
lawful sovereigns by their superstitious adhesion to the spiritual
tyranny of the Pope, and that barbarous and ferine cruelty against
those that are not either such fools as to be persuaded to believe such
things as they would obtrude upon men, or are not so false to God
and their own consciences, as knowing better, yet to profess them.
“As for that other opinion, that the greater part of the reformed
divines hold, that it was the devil that appeared in Samuel’s shape;
and though Grotius also seems to be inclined thereto, alleging that
passage of Porphyrius de abstinentia Animalium, where he
describes one kind of spirit to be Γένος ἀπατηλῆς φύσεως,
παντόμορφόν τε καὶ πολύτροπον, ὑποκρινόμενον καὶ θεοὺς καὶ
δαίμονας καὶ ψυχὰς τεθνηκότων. (which is, I confess, very
apposite to this story; nor do I doubt but that in many of these
necromantick apparitions, they are ludicrous spirits, not the souls of
the deceased that appear,) yet I am clear for the appearing of the soul
of Samuel in this story, from the reasons above alleged, and as clear
that in other necromancies, it may be the devil or such kind of
spirits, as Porphyrius above describes, ‘that change themselves into
omnifarious forms and shapes, and one while act the parts of
dæmons, another while of angels or gods, and another while of the
souls of the deceased.’ And I confess such a spirit as this might
personate Samuel here, for any thing Webster has alleged to the
contrary, for his arguments indeed are wonderfully weak and
wooden, as may be understood out of what I have hinted concerning
the former opinion, but I cannot further particularize now.
“For I have made my postscript much longer than my letter, before
I was aware; and I need not enlarge to you, who are so well versed in
these things already, and can by the quickness of your parts presently
collect the whole measures of Hercules by his foot, and sufficiently
understand by this time it is no rash censure of mine in my letter,
that Webster’s book is but a weak impertinent piece of work, the very
master-piece thereof being so weak and impertinent, and falling so
short of the scope he aims at, which was really to prove that there
was no such thing as a witch or wizard, that is not any mention
thereof in Scripture, by any name ‘of one that had more to do with
the devil, or the devil with him, than with other wicked men;’ that is
to say, of one who in virtue of covenant, either implicit or explicit,
did strange things by the help of evil spirits, but that ‘there are many
sorts of deceivers and impostures, and divers persons under a
passive delusion of melancholy and fancy,’ which is part of his very
title-page.
“Whereby he does plainly insinuate, that there is nothing but
couzenage or melancholy in the whole business of the fears of
witches. But a little to mitigate or smother the greatness of this false
assertion, he adds, ‘And that there is no corporeal league betwixt the
devil and the witch; and that he does not suck on the witches body,
nor has carnal copulation with her, nor the witches turned into dogs
or cats,’ &c. All which things as you may see in his book, he
understands in the grossest imaginable, as if the imps of witches had
mouths of flesh to suck them, and bodies of flesh to lie with them,
and at this rate he may understand a corporeal league, as if it were
no league or covenant, unless some lawyer drew the instrument, and
engrossed it in vellum or thick parchment, and there were so many
witnesses with the hand and seal of the party. Nor any
transformation into dogs or cats, unless it were real and corporeal, or
grossly carnal; which none of his witch-mongers, as he rudely and
slovenly calls that learned and serious person, Dr. Casaubon and the
rest, do believe. Only it is a disputable case of their bodily
transformation, betwixt bodinus and remigius; of which more in my
Scholia. But that without this carnal transmutation, a woman might
not be accounted a witch, is so foolish a supposition, that Webster
himself certainly must be ashamed of it.
“Wherefore if his book be writ only to prove there is no such thing
as a witch that covenants in parchment with the Devil by the advice
of a lawyer, and is really and carnally turned into a dog, cat, or hare,
&c. and with carnal lips sucked by the devil, and is one with whom
the devil lies carnally; the scope thereof is manifestly impertinent,
when neither Dr. Casaubon, nor any one else holds any such thing.
But as for the true and adequate notion of a witch or wizard, such as
at first I described, his arguments all of them are too weak and
impertinent, as to the disproving the existence of such a witch as
this, who betwixt his deceivers, impostors, and melancholists on one
hand, and those gross witches he describes on the other hand, goes
away sheer as a hair in a green balk betwixt two lands of corn, none
of his arguments reaching her, or getting the sight of her, himself in
the mean time standing on one side amongst the deceivers and
impostors, his book, as to the main design he drives at, being a meer
cheat and impostor.
“C. C. C. May, 25, 1678.”
 The Confessions of certain Scotch Witches,
taken out of an authentic copy of their trial
at the Assizes held at Paisley, in Scotland,
Feb. 15, 1678, touching the bewitching of Sir
George Maxwel.
The tenour of the confessions as taken before justices. As first of
Annabil Stuart, of the age of 14 years, or thereby; who declared that
she was brought in the presence of the justices for the crime of
witchcraft; and declared, that one harvest last, the devil, in the shape
of a black man, came to her mother’s house, and required the
declarant to give herself up to him; and that the devil promised her
she should not want any thing that was good.—Declares that she,
being enticed by her mother, Jennet Mathie, and Bessie Wen, who
was officer to their several meetings, she put her hand to the crown
of her head, and the other to the sole of her foot, and did give herself
up to the devil. Declares that her mother promised her a new coat for
doing it. Declares that her spirit’s name was Ennipa, and that the
devil took her by the hand and nipt her arm, which continued to be
sore for half an hour. Declares that the devil, in the shape of a black
man, lay with her in the bed, under the clothes, and that she found
him cold. Declares, that thereafter, he placed her nearest himself,
and declares she was present in her mother’s house when the effigy
of wax was made, and that it was made to represent Sir George
Maxwel. Declares, that the black man, Jannet Mathie, the declarant’s
mother, (whose spirit’s name was Lemdlady; Bessie Weir, whose
spirit’s name was Sopha; Margaret Craige, whose spirit’s name is
Regerum, and Margaret Jackson, whose spirit’s name is Locas) were
all present at the making of the said effigy; and that they bound it on
a spit, and turned it before the fire; and that it was turned by Bessie
Weir, saying, as they turned it, Sir George Maxwel, Sir George
Maxwel, and that this was expressed by all of them, and by the
declarant. Declares that this picture was made in October last. And
further declares that upon the third day of January instant, Bessie
Weir came to her mother’s house, and advertised her to come to her
brother John Stuart’s upon the night following; and that accordingly
she came to the place, where she found Bessie Weir, Margery Craige,
Margaret Jackson, and her brother John Stuart, and a man with
black cloaths, and a blue band, and white handcuffs, with hogers,
and that his feet were cloven: that declarant sat down by the fire with
them when they made a picture of clay, in which they placed pins in
the breasts and sides; that they placed one in every side, and one in
the breast; that the black man did put the pins in the picture of wax;
but is not sure who put the pins in the picture of clay; that the effigies
produced are those she saw made; that the black man’s name is
Ejsal.
This declaration was emitted before James Dunlop, of Husil, and
William Gremlage, &c. Jan. 27, 1677, ita est Robertus Park,
Notarius Publicus.
“The second confession is of John Stuart, who being interrogate
anent the crime of witchcraft, declared that upon Wednesday, the
third day of January instant, Bessie Weir, in Pollocton, came to the
declarant late at night, who being without doors near to his own
house, the said Bessie Weir did intimate to him that there was a
meeting to be at his house, the next day; and that the devil under the
shape of a black man, Margaret Jackson, Margery Craige, and the
said Bessie Weir were to be present; and that Bessie Weir required
declarant to be there, which he promised; and that the next night,
after declarant had gone to bed, the black man came in, and called
the declarant quietly by his name, upon which he arose from his bed,
put on his clothes and lighted a candle. Declare, that Margaret
Jackson, Bessie Weir, and Margery Craige, did enter in at a window
in the cavil of declarant’s house; and that the first thing the black
man required, was, that the declarant should renounce his baptism,
and deliver himself wholly to him; which the declarant did, by
putting one hand on the crown of his head, and the other on the sole
of his foot; and that he was tempted to it by the devil promising him
that he should not want any pleasure, and that he should get his
heart filled on all that should do him wrong. Declares, that he gave
him the name of Jonat for his spirit’s name; that thereafter the devil
required every one of their consents for the making of the effigies of
clay, for the taking away the life of Sir George Maxwel, of Pollock, to
revenge the taking of declarant’s mother, Jannet Mathie, that every
one of the persons above named, gave their consent to the making of
the said effigy, and that they wrought the clay; that the black man did
make the figure of the head and face, and two arms, to the said
effigy; that the devil set three pins in the same, on one each side and
one in the breast; and that the declarant did hold the candle to them,
all the time the picture was making. And that he observed one of the
black man’s feet to be cloven—that his apparel was black—that he
had a blueish band and handcuffs—that he had hogers on his legs,
without shoes; and that the black man’s voice was hough and
goustie: and farther declares that after they had begun the framing of
the effigies, his sister, Annabil Stuart, a child of 13 or 14 years of age,
came knocking at the door, and being let in by the declarant, she
staid with them a considerable time, but that she went away before
the rest, he having opened the door for her—that the rest went out at
the window at which they entered—that the effigies was placed by
Bessie Weir in his bed-straw. He farther declares he himself did envy
against Sir George Maxwel, for apprehending Jannet Mathie, his
mother; and that Bessie Weir had great malice against this Sir
George Maxwel, and that her quarrel was, as the declarant conceived,
because the said Sir George had not entered her husband to his
harvest service; also that the said effigies was made upon the fourth
day of January instant, and that the devil’s name was Ejoal; that
declarant’s spirit’s name was Jonas, and Bessie Weir’s spirit’s name,
who was officer, was Sopha; and that Margaret Jackson’s spirit’s
name was Locas; and that Annabil Stuart’s spirit’s name, the
declarant’s sister, was Enippa; but does not remember what
Margery Craige’s spirit’s name was. Declares that he cannot write.
This confession was emitted in the presence of the witnesses to the
other confession, and on the same day.—Ita est. Robertus Park,
Notarius Publicus.
The next confession is that of Margaret, relict of Thomas Shaws,
who being examined by the justices, anent her being guilty of
witchcraft, declares that she was present at the making of the first
effigies and picture that were made in Jannet Mathie’s house, in
October; and that the devil, in the shape of a black man, Jannet
Mathie, Bessie Weir, Margery Craige, and Annabil Stuart, were
present at the making of them, and that they were made to represent
Sir George Maxwel, of Pollock, for the taking away his life. Declares,
that 40 years ago, or thereabout, she was at Pollockshaw Croft, with
some few sticks on her back, that the black man came to her, and
that she did give up herself unto him, from the top of her head to the
sole of her foot; and that this was after declarant had renounced her
baptism, and that the spirit’s name which he designed her was Locas:
and that about the third or fourth of January instant, or thereby, in
the night-time, when she awaked, she found a man to be in bed with
her, whom she supposed to be her husband, though her husband had
been dead twenty years or thereby, and that the said man
immediately disappeared; that this man who disappeared was the
devil. Declares, that upon Thursday the fourth of January instant,
she was present in the house of John Stuart, at night, when the
effigies of clay was made, and that she saw the black man there,
sometimes sitting, sometimes standing with John Stuart; and that
the black man’s cloaths were black, and that he had white handcuffs;
and that Bessie Weir, in Pollocton, and Annabil Stuart, in Shaws, and
Margery Craigie, were at the aforesaid time and place at making the
said effigies of clay; and declares that she gave her consent to the
making of the same, and that the devil’s name who compeered in the
black man’s shape was Ejoll.
Sic Subscribitur, ita est, Robertus Park, Notatius Publicus, &c.
 Then follows the depositions of certain
persons, agreeing with confessions of the
above-said witches.
“Andr. Martin, Servitour to the Lord of Pollock, of the age of thirty
years, or thereby, deposes, that he was present in the house of Jannet
Mathie, Pannel, when the picture of wax produced was found in a
little hole in the wall at the back of the fire—that Sir George, his
sickness did fall upon him about the eighteenth of October, or
thereby—that the picture of wax was found on the —— of December,
and that Sir George his sickness did abate and relent about the time
the picture of wax was found and discovered in Jannet Mathie’s
house—that the pins were placed in the right and left sides; and that
Sir George Maxwel, of Pollock, his pains, lay most in his right and left
sides. Depones, that Sir George’s pains did abate and relent after the
finding of the said picture of wax, and taking out the pins as is said—
that the pannel, Jannet Mathie, has been by fame and bruite a
reputed witch these several years past. And this is the truth, as he
shall answer to God.—Sic Subscribitur, Andr. Martin.”
“Lawrence Pollock, Secretary to the Lord of Pollock, sworn and
purged of partial counsel, depones that on the —— day of December
he was in the Pannel Jannet Mathie’s house when the picture was
found; and that he did not see it before it was brought to the Pannel’s
door—that Sir George Maxwel of Pollock’s sickness did seize upon
him about the 14th of October, or thereabouts, and he did continue
in his sickness or distemper for six weeks, or thereby—that Sir
George’s sickness did abate and relent after the finding of the said
picture of wax, and taking out of the pins that were in the effigies—
that by open bruit and common fame, Jannet Mathie, and Bessie
Weir, and Margery Craige, are brandit to be witches. Depones, that
the truth is this, as he shall answer to God.—Sic Subscrib. Lawrence
Pollock.”
“Lodawic’ Stuart, of Auckenhead, being sworn and purged of
partial counsel, depones, that Sir George’s sickness fell upon him the
14th or 13th day of October—that he was not present at the finding of
the picture of wax; but that he had seen Sir George Maxwel, of
Pollock, after it was found; and having seen him in his sickness
oftentimes before, he did perceive that Sir George had sensibly
recovered after the time that the said picture was said to have been
found, which was upon the 11th or 12th of December—that Jannet
Mathie and Margery Craigie, two of the Pannel, are by report of the
country said to be witches—that he having come to Pollock, he did
see Sir George Maxwel, whose pains did recur, and that his pains and
torments were greatly increased in respect of what they were before
the finding of the picture of wax—that upon the eighth of January,
when they left the said Sir George Maxwel, of Pollock, the deponent
James Dunlop, of Housil, Allan Douglass, and several others, did go
to the house of John Stuart, Warlock, on Pollockshaw, and there he
found a picture of clay in the said John Stuart’s bed-straw—that
there were three pins in the said picture of clay, and that there was
one on each side, and one in the breast—and further depones, that
being returned to Sir George’s house, Sir George told the deponent
that he found great ease of his pains, and that it was before the
deponent Hounsil, and the rest, did reveal to him that they had
found the said picture of clay, and further, that this is the truth, as he
shall answer to God.—Sic. Subscrib. Lodowick Stuart.”

There are more depositions of a similar nature whence these were

extracted, but these are enough to discover that the confession of
those witches are neither fables nor dreams. It belongs us, therefore,
in this enlightened age, when superstition has fled before the rays of
science and the influence of religion, to account for the then
prevalent notion, which appears so far to be authenticated, of the
existence of witches. It is not enough to say that people are
barbarous, ignorant, or unenlightened, to exculpate them from
charges involving such strong points as supernatural with human
agency. In this stage of investigation, nothing is more natural than to
ask, did witches ever exist? Yes.—Upon what authority? Sacred Writ.
—Are there such beings as witches now? We hear of none.—Then the
last grand question, to which a secret of some importance is attached
—What has become of them? have they vanished into viewless air,
without leaving a wreck behind; or are they consigned to the “bottom
of the bottomless pit?” Of this we may say something hereafter; while
in the meantime we lay before our readers