Angel Island Burns
By Margaret Foster | Online Only | Oct. 16, 2008
The main barracks building is being restored.
Credit: Daphne Kwok, Angel Island Association
On Sunday night, a fire swept across San Francisco's Angel Island, blackening 380 acres of trees and brush on the 740-acre island. Firefighters managed to protect the island's 120 historic structures, including a Civil War barracks that is one of the oldest in the country.
Known as the Ellis Island of the West, Angel Island was home to an immigration station that operated from 1910 until 1940.
About 275 firefighters worked to contain the fire, which started near a campground. Only one structure—a water tower—was destroyed, according to the Marin County Fire Department. Workers doused flames that began to burn a 1930s rock crusher. The blaze never reached the 1863 barracks and the immigration station, which will open next year after a $65 million restoration.
"The grass will grow back, but the Civil War barracks? They won't grow back," Todd Lando, spokesman for the Marin County Fire Department, told the San Francisco Chronicle. "It was just a very good thing that we managed to save them. It's where we focused most of our attention Sunday night."
In 1999, the National Trust for Historic Preservation named the neglected Angel Island Immigration Station one of 
America's 11 Most Endangered Historic Places. The site won a Save America's Treasures grant of $500,000 in 2000, and Save America's Treasures at the National Trust raised another $538,000 for the station. In 2006, San Franciscans chose the immigration station and 12 other sites to win grants from the American Express Partners in Preservation program.
The park, which has been closed since the fire, will reopen on Monday.
Read more about restoration on Angel Island
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