Thirty-five years later, the hills held their breath again.

There is a particular dread that settles over the East Bay hills when the sky fills with smoke, a dread that is not abstract but historical, carried in the memory of a firestorm that killed twenty-five people thirty-five years ago to the day. On Tuesday morning, that dread returned. A vegetation fire ignited near the 1000 block of Panoramic Way, along the border of Oakland and Berkeley, and for a few hours, the hills held their breath.

The fire was reported at approximately 11:45 a.m. and spread to two to three acres, threatening homes in a neighborhood that sits roughly halfway between the Claremont Resort and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory . One home sustained partial fire damage before crews halted the blaze's progress. By 2:35 p.m., the Berkeley Police Department declared the fire under control . No injuries were reported.

The response was swift and multi-agency. Firefighters from Oakland, Berkeley, East Bay Regional Parks, Cal Fire, and Alameda County converged on the scene, with roughly seventy-five to eighty personnel committed to the effort . A Cal Fire helicopter made water drops on the flames. Officials described the fire's rate of spread as slow, which allowed crews to establish defensive lines quickly . Road closures were put in place at Stadium Rim Way and Centennial Drive, and at Prospect Street and Channing Way, intersections that feed traffic into the Panoramic Hill neighborhood .

There was a moment of confusion in the public messaging. Berkeley Fire Department initially said an evacuation warning had been issued for the Panoramic Hills area, then clarified that no such warning was in effect . Residents on Panoramic Way were asked to shelter in place. UC Berkeley officials said the fire was not impacting campus property or operations and that no campus evacuations were necessary .

The date of the fire is not incidental. October 20 marks thirty-five years since the Oakland Hills firestorm of 1991, a catastrophe that killed twenty-five people, injured 150, and caused $1.5 billion in damage . The location of Tuesday's blaze was not far from where that fire began. But the wind was blowing in a different direction, and the conditions were not the same. The memory, however, does not distinguish between what happened and what could have happened.

The cause of the fire remains under investigation . What is known is that a hillside burned, a home was damaged, and a community that has learned to read smoke on the horizon watched and waited and, this time, exhaled. The hills are not safe from fire, and will not be. But on Tuesday, the response held, and the day passed without the catastrophe that the date itself seemed to threaten.

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Sources: Berkeleyside, KTVU, NewsBreak (KRON4), NBC Bay Area, Patch