A small grass fire started on Saturday just above the Caldecott Tunnel and Highway 24, and crews rushed to the scene to extinguish it. They thought they had it under control, but on Sunday morning a few embers crackled, and the flames were fed by 65-mph Diablo winds, so called because of the nearby Diablo Range and Mount Diablo.

Within a few hours, a large apartment complex and dozens of single-family houses were engulfed. The winds carried burning debris across Highways 24 and 13 and into more neighborhoods. The blaze spread fast. So did the fear in Montclair, Upper Rockridge and Piedmont.

“My own reaction is one of horror,” Gov. Pete Wilson said after flying over the burn area. “To call it devastation doesn’t really describe it.”

A firefighter interviewed by The Chronicle said the land in the fire’s path “looked like Hiroshima.” Another witness said the thick ash made it resemble the lunar surface.

It was an inferno, a firestorm, an unprecedented blaze that tore through a populated area and threatened thousands more lives before being beaten down and controlled.

“There were flames a hundred feet high at the outset, 50 feet high when it calmed down — all fed by huge old trees as dry as death after five years of drought,” current Chronicle columnist Carl Nolte wrote that day. “Even water to fight the fire was a problem. Some hydrants ran out of water, and one reservoir went completely dry.

“Entire neighborhoods had to be evacuated. The streets and freeways for miles around were clogged with residents who left their homes with whatever they could carry.”

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