The blaze was "a clear indication that this is a matter of life and death," Olyer said.

Station 28 and Station 25, near Joaquin Miller Park, shuttered along with another station that was already closed as part of $130 million in spending cuts Oakland is making in the face of a massive budget shortfall. Unless new funding becomes available in the next few weeks, four more stations will shutter in February, leaving seven of the city's 28 firehouses out of commission through the end of the fiscal year in June.

James Donohoe, who lives on the other side of the home destroyed by Wednesday's fire, said his neighbors are now worried about the six months ahead.

"If you're up here on any other day, the wind comes through here, sometimes it feels like a fricking hurricane," he said, looking out at Chabot Park, which created a wind tunnel behind his hillside house. "If there had been wind, for sure my house would be gone. And I think probably this whole community would still be on fire."

Fearful Oakland Hills residents have spent decades hardening their homes, improving vegetation management and fighting for city funding since the Tunnel Fire destroyed more than two miles of residential neighborhoods and killed 25 people in 1991. But the area's high winds, tightly nestled houses and routine fluctuation between rainy and bone-dry has inherent risks.

"There's so many fallen trees," Donohoe said, pointing at a tangle of chopped eucalyptus trees and dead brush about 300 yards from his house. "Even though we've had a lot of rain and there's a lot of green, underneath that green, there's a lot of dried pine needles, et cetera. There's a lot of fuel here."

He said the community is anxious over the closed stations, especially as he and neighbors watch the Eaton and Palisades fires devastate similar neighborhoods in the Los Angeles area in recent weeks. Many are now worried about losing insurance coverage, or are frantically looking for a new provider after being dropped.

"We know that if we were going to lose our home, it would be a devastating financial loss," Donohoe said. Even though he has insurance, he said it wouldn't cover the cost to rebuild. "We're both high school teachers, so we don't make a whole bunch of money. We're good, but when we think of retirement, that's our nest egg."