54 Missing; Fire Questions Mount : Disaster: Some officials cite risk of leaving original blaze unattended. Death toll at 19 in Bay Area.

As questions mounted about the handling of the devastating fire in the Oakland and Berkeley hills, the known death toll rose to 19 on Tuesday with 54 others declared missing and feared to have perished in the worst wildfire ever in California.

Fire officials declared the blaze, which began as a small grass fire that was never completely extinguished, fully contained after it destroyed more than 2,500 homes, townhouses and apartments--many of them million-dollar properties with views overlooking Oakland and San Francisco.

The number of fatalities and homes destroyed was expected to rise through the week as crews searched for bodies in the ashes and assessed the full extent of the damage, now estimated at more than $5 billion. In Washington, President Bush declared the fire zone a federal disaster area, making property owners eligible for federal assistance.

Investigators, meanwhile, began to focus on the cause of the small grass fire that started Saturday. Sgt. Ron Hanson, an arson investigator with the Oakland Police Department, said the fire began on the site of an illegal construction project owned by Norman Allis, a general contractor.

On Saturday, workers hired by Allis were doing tile work and other odd jobs on a cabin under construction, Hanson said, but just how the fire was ignited was not clear.

The original six-acre blaze in the Grizzly Peak area of Oakland was “contained” but not completely put out by firefighters Saturday. They kept equipment in the area and monitored the scene off and on Saturday night--but left the smoldering burn area unattended at times.

On Sunday, as firefighters watched, the embers were whipped up by Santa Ana-like winds that quickly carried the fire into the heavily populated and densely wooded hillside neighborhoods of Oakland and Berkeley.

In interviews Tuesday, officials with other agencies and fire science experts around the state raised questions about Oakland’s handling of the initial fire and suggested that firefighters took a risky step that backfired when they left the first fire unattended at times Saturday night.

“Our policy is you make sure a fire is cold--with all the hot spots out--before you walk away,” said Clark Pearson, a fire inspector with the Los Angeles County Fire Department. “It’s hard to say what happened up there, but the normal procedure is you don’t leave until you’ve got that thing totally out.”

Joe Rubini, chief of fire protection for 100 square miles of brushland in the East Bay Regional Parks system, also faulted Oakland firefighters for failing to pursue mop-up operations throughout Saturday night.

“Our policy is that we sit on the fire all night long--if they left, it was a mistake,” said Rubini, who was at the scene Saturday with his agency’s firefighters.

Rubini said that Oakland fire officials dismissed his firefighters from the scene by day’s end, and on Sunday told them to come retrieve their hoses because the danger was over.

But when his firefighters arrived Sunday to pick up their equipment, Rubini said, they noticed hot spots that were not being tended by Oakland firefighters. His crew hooked up their hoses and started dousing the embers, Rubini said, but by then hot, dry winds had kicked up and the fire was on the verge of erupting out of control.

While declining to criticize Oakland directly, a state Department of Forestry official echoed the belief that seemingly minor grass fires such as the one in Oakland should not be left untended, especially given the drought conditions, thick brush and high winds in the area.

“It is a common firefighting practice not to leave a fire until it is controlled, until you’ve got it out,” said Bill Weaver, a deputy chief with the Department of Forestry in Sacramento. “All kinds of unknown things can happen while you’re gone, and before you know it, an escape (of flames) can occur.”

Oakland Fire Chief P. Lamont Ewell defended the department’s handling of the blaze and called the strategy used on the original fire “normal operating procedure.”

However, a critic who is familiar with workings at Oakland City Hall said that Ewell, who has been on the job less than a month, was under heavy pressure to hold down his department’s costs. Keeping firefighters on the scene would have meant paying $12,000 to $15,000 in overtime and equipment expenses, said the source, who asked not to be identified.

Oakland Mayor Elihu Harris defended the city’s managing of the fire Tuesday, emphasizing that the flames whipped rapidly through overgrown brush and turned into an unstoppable firestorm, but he said the city would conduct a “critical review” of the Fire Department’s handling of the initial blaze.

Harris said it was easy for people to second-guess the handling of the fire, but that it was “not appropriate” to make judgments until all the facts are in. “I think that’s part of the critical review,” he said.

“You can never have too many firefighters,” the mayor said. “For those who say we were under-funded and don’t have enough, they are correct.”

The fire destroyed an area populated by many of Oakland’s wealthiest citizens and some of its leading lights. Among them is former baseball star Reggie Jackson, who lost his home, a fire official said.

“It’s gone,” said engineer James Dean after touring the area. “A pile of rubble is all that’s left on that street and every street around it.”

The homes of state Sen. Nicholas C. Petris (D-Oakland) and Alameda County Supervisor Warren Widener also burned to the ground. Oakland City Councilwoman Marge Gibson Haskell said she lost two homes, one she had just bought and one she was trying to sell.

City officials, meanwhile, also responded Tuesday to criticism that Fire Department staffing was inadequate. Craig Kocian, assistant city manager, acknowledged that Oakland’s firefighting force of 470 is down from nearly 600 in the years before Proposition 13 was passed by voters. Meanwhile, the city has grown to 372,000 people, with much of the new construction taking place in the fire-prone hills.

“I think it’s fair to say that the city is adequately staffed for coverage for most normal firefighting situations in an urban area,” Kocian said. “The situation we had on Sunday was extreme. No fire service or city could afford to staff to a level that would enable us to get control over that situation.”

Many residents, however, continued to heap blame on the beleaguered city Tuesday, criticizing response times and many other aspects of Oakland’s handling of the disaster. At least one homeowner said she called the department off and on Saturday night, reporting that the fire authorities had declared “contained” was reigniting, city government sources said.

Harold Smith, 68, who lost his hilltop condominium in the blaze, said he and his roommate, Elinor Friedman, evacuated as flames drew near on Sunday morning, at about 10:15 a.m. There was no warning, he said, and “there wasn’t a helicopter in sight.”

“There’s a lot of blame,” said the bitter Smith, a semi-retired builder who had just added a wood deck to his condo with a panoramic view of San Francisco Bay. “There were no firemen around, no policemen. It was a normal Sunday waiting to erupt.”

Other residents also said they had no warning to evacuate, and many complained that the department should have been better prepared given the winds and unusually dry conditions caused by five years of drought.

American Red Cross officials, who have been assessing the damage, said Tuesday they have counted 2,104 single-family dwellings and 442 apartment units that were destroyed. That total was based on a survey of 85% of the 2,000-acre burn area and could rise somewhat.

About 5,000 people have been made homeless by the fire but many have found lodging with relatives. About 8,000 homes in the vicinity of the fire have no gas and another 4,750 have no electric service, a Pacific Gas & Electric spokesman said.

As Gov. Pete Wilson and other officials toured the devastated Hiller Highlands area of Oakland on Tuesday, residents Larry and Helen Nolan discovered that the house where they had lived for seven years was no longer standing.

The couple lost everything but the jogging clothes they were wearing and found nothing of value in the ashes of their home.

“We left that morning to go and jog and we never made it back up,” Helen Nolan said. “I was hoping that I would find my wedding ring.”

Fire Facts

Statistics from the East Bay blaze include: Deaths: 19 confirmed Believed missing: 54 Injured: 148 Structures destroyed: 2,104 single-family homes and townhouses; 442 apartments Acres burned: 1,800 Losses: Estimated at more than $5 billion Evacuated: 5,000 people No electricity: 4,750 people No gas service: 8,000 people SOURCE: Los Angeles Times, Oakland Fire Department, Red Cross, wire services

Times staff writer Jenifer Warren in Los Angeles contributed to this story.