Cleanup continued Tuesday after a massive eight-alarm fire at a Redwood City affordable housing construction site that prompted evacuations and an air quality advisory.
On Tuesday morning, crews remained at the site, monitoring hot spots and possible flareups in one of the largest structure fires in the Bay Area in recent years.
The fire was first reported at 10:15 a.m. Monday in the 2700 block of Middlefield Road and spread quickly through the wood skeleton of a 179-unit housing development under construction, fire officials said.
The threat of the structure collapsing prompted authorities to evacuate nearby homes, but some of those evacuees were cleared to return home Monday evening.
Fire crews brought down some scaffolding at the site Monday night to prevent it from collapsing, fire officials said.
The cause of the fire is under investigation, but officials believe it started on the fifth floor as workers were insulating units and working on sheetrock.
"It was open-frame construction," said Jon Johnston, fire marshal for the Menlo Park Fire Department. "The first floor, the podium, is concrete, but then the next five floors was open framing. Wide open fuel loading. When you have air, it just allowed for it to have pretty open free burn."
Roberts-Obayashi, the construction company responsible for the project, said Tuesday no "hot work" was being performed at the site. But the company confirmed the fire began on the fifth floor and said workers tried to put out the flames with fire extinguishers, but it grew too fast.
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Roberts-Obayashi said around 130 workers were on site.
The project's nonprofit developer, Mercy Housing, told NBC Bay Area the affordable housing project has been in the works for about a decade. One of two buildings was destroyed, 104 units in all, while the second building did not burn, Mercy Housing said.
The developer added that it remains committed to completing the project.
Nearby residents returned home feeling a mix of emotions. They're relieved their houses and families are safe, but they're concerned by the amount of damage they found.
James Smith found the fence separating his house from the construction site destroyed, his roof damaged and a back window blown open.
"There's a lot of clothing and furnishings that just smell like smoke," he said. "They've either got to be cleaned or replaced."
He said he and his wife were two of the last in the neighborhood to evacuate. She checked on neighbors while he hosed down the embers until the fire department arrived. He said he saw chunks of flaming insulation falling from the construction site onto his neighbors' roofs.
"I know it's just a garden hose, but we did what we could until they could get their main hoses turned on," Smith said. "It turned out good. We all have our houses. We got a lot of cleanup."
A few doors down from Smith, Aura Martinez's home was in better shape with little damage. Her relief was overwhelming.
"Now the house is still there, so I say thank God and just try to keep going and try to do the best," she said.
