Ghost Ship Fire: 36 Victims, Criminal Case, and Settlements

The Ghost Ship fire killed 36 people on the night of December 2, 2016, when flames tore through an illegally converted warehouse at 1305 31st Avenue in Oakland’s Fruitvale district during an electronic music party on the second floor. It was one of the deadliest structural fires in modern California history. The criminal case ended without either defendant serving a prison sentence for the deaths, while the City of Oakland, the building’s owners, and other defendants paid more than $45 million to settle civil claims brought by victims’ families and survivors.¹²

The Warehouse That Was Not Supposed to Be Lived In

The Ghost Ship was a roughly 10,000-square-foot warehouse zoned for commercial storage. Master tenant Derick Almena and his wife, Micah Allison, ran it as an unpermitted live-work artists’ collective, with about 15 people living inside at any given time, some in recreational vehicles parked on the ground floor. The collective paid $5,000 a month in rent to the Ng family, who had owned the building since the late 1980s.³

The interior was a dense maze of wooden fixtures, rugs, Balinese beds, pianos, sculptures, Tibetan prayer flags, and Christmas lights. Former occupants called it a “deathtrap” and a “matchbox.” The second floor, where the party was held, could only be reached by a makeshift staircase built from wooden shipping pallets.³⁴

There were no sprinklers, no smoke detectors, no fire alarms, and no emergency lighting. There were only two exits. Power was routed from a neighboring auto body shop through an overloaded cable threaded through a hole in the wall, and fuses and breakers had blown days before the fire.⁵

The Fire and the 36 Who Died

The fire broke out during an underground electronic music event featuring artists associated with the label 100% Silk. Federal and local investigators later determined the blaze originated in the northwest corner of the ground floor but could not identify a specific cause. Propane and natural gas were ruled out. Candles, incense, cigarettes, electrical failure, and an intentional or careless open flame could not be eliminated.⁵

The second floor partially collapsed during the fire, sending heavy rugs and debris downward and trapping victims in clusters. Recovery was slow because of the building’s chaotic layout.⁵

The 36 dead ranged in age from 17 to 61 and included musicians, DJs, visual artists, teachers, students, writers, and filmmakers. The youngest was Draven McGill, a 17-year-old student at the Ruth Asawa San Francisco School of the Arts. The oldest was Wolfgang Renner, 61, who attended with his partner Michele Sylvan. Among the dead were electronic producer Chelsea Faith Dolan, known as Cherushii; Cash Askew, a 22-year-old musician who played in the duo Them Are Us Too; and Ara Jo, a 29-year-old visual artist who co-organized the East Bay Alternative Book and Zine Fest.⁶⁷

What the City Knew and Missed

The Ghost Ship had never been formally inspected by the Oakland Fire Department. The property was not on the city’s internal list of buildings requiring inspection, partly because it was officially categorized as vacant, which exempted it from certain fire safety reviews.⁸

Over three decades, officials received at least 22 complaints about the property involving blight, abandoned cars, trash, and rodents. Oakland police had responded to the site 19 times in ten years for issues including stabbings and illegal raves. In October 2014, a complaint was filed about construction without permits, and in November 2016, just weeks before the fire, inspectors received a complaint about the warehouse being converted into residences. A building inspector visited but could not gain entry.⁴

Four Oakland firefighters had walked through the building in 2014. Captain George Freelen later testified that he observed a “high fire load” during the visit. In 2015, an Oakland police officer who visited told a partner he considered the art collective “a huge fireplace” and feared what one spark would do. Neither visit produced enforcement action.⁹

The Criminal Case

Alameda County prosecutors charged Almena and Max Harris, the collective’s creative director, each with 36 counts of involuntary manslaughter. Prosecutors said the two had turned the warehouse into a “fire trap” by overcrowding it for events without fire safeguards, in violation of the lease terms.¹⁰

In July 2018, both men pleaded no contest under a deal that would have given Almena nine years and Harris six years in prison. Alameda County Superior Court Judge James Cramer rejected the pleas in August 2018, ruling that Almena had failed to show remorse. Victims’ families had objected to the sentences as too lenient.¹¹

The case went to trial. Deliberations began August 26, 2019, after about three months of proceedings. Judge Trina Thompson dismissed three jurors for misconduct, including one who had consulted a non-witness firefighter for advice, and ordered the remaining jurors to restart.¹⁰

On September 5, 2019, the jury acquitted Harris on all 36 counts. On Almena the jury deadlocked 10 to 2 in favor of conviction, and Judge Thompson declared a mistrial. Harris, who had spent more than two years in jail awaiting trial, was released that night.¹²

Rather than face a second trial, Almena pleaded guilty in January 2021 to all 36 counts of involuntary manslaughter. He was sentenced on March 8, 2021, to 12 years in prison. After credit for time served and good behavior, he did not return to prison. He was ordered to serve roughly a year and a half under house arrest with a GPS ankle monitor, followed by three years of supervised probation requiring drug testing, firearm relinquishment, and mental health treatment. He was also ordered to pay $181,000 in restitution for funeral expenses and counseling. The court noted that the COVID-19 pandemic had complicated the ability to hold a new trial.¹³¹⁴

The Civil Settlements

Roughly 80 plaintiffs, including victims’ families and survivors, sued the City of Oakland, the Ng family, Pacific Gas & Electric, party promoters, and Almena for negligence.²

In July 2020, Oakland agreed to pay $32.7 million to settle the consolidated lawsuit. Of that, $23.5 million went to the families of 32 victims and $9.2 million to Sam Maxwell, a survivor with catastrophic injuries. The city did not acknowledge liability. The Oakland City Council separately approved a $399,000 settlement for 12 former residents of the warehouse.¹

Building owner Chor Ng and her children, Kai and Eva Ng, who served as property managers, were not criminally charged. Then-District Attorney Nancy O’Malley said Kai Ng bore “some civil liability.” Evidence in the civil case included emails showing Kai Ng was aware of electrical infrastructure deficiencies before the lease began, along with an invoice showing the owners knew of a small electrical fire in the adjacent auto body shop in 2014. On April 30, 2021, the Ng family filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy to settle the civil claims and agreed to pay approximately $11.8 million, funded by $6 million from insurance, an initial $1 million payment from the family, and proceeds from the sale of real estate holdings including the Ghost Ship site.²

Benjamin Cannon, a former tenant who performed unpermitted electrical work at the warehouse complex, reached a $1 million settlement through his insurance company with the families of 33 victims. Cannon’s contractor license had expired years earlier, and he lacked the state certification required for electrical work. He had installed transformers, breakers, and distribution panels after a 2014 fire in the adjoining auto body shop, describing the existing infrastructure as “catastrophically overloading.” Cannon invoked his Fifth Amendment rights during his deposition regarding his electrical work and licensing status.¹¹⁵

PG&E reached a confidential settlement with 33 plaintiffs in 2020. A U.S. bankruptcy judge had ruled in December 2019 that the lawsuit against the utility could proceed, with damages capped at coverage remaining from PG&E’s 2016 insurance policies.¹⁶

What Changed in Oakland and California

In January 2017, Mayor Libby Schaaf issued Executive Order 2017-1, directing city departments to improve safety in unpermitted buildings while avoiding unnecessary tenant displacement. Oakland formed a fire safety task force, hired additional inspectors, established an interdepartmental team to manage high-risk properties, and began rolling out the Accela database to integrate inspection data across departments. The city also increased relocation payments for tenants displaced by code enforcement and broadened just-cause eviction protections.¹⁷¹⁸

At the state level, reporting after the fire showed that local fire departments across California routinely failed to conduct state-mandated annual inspections of schools and apartment buildings. Senator Jerry Hill sponsored SB 1205, signed in September 2018, requiring city, county, and district fire departments to submit annual reports to their governing bodies on their compliance with mandated fire safety inspections.¹⁹

A 2020 audit by Oakland City Auditor Courtney Ruby found that despite the reforms, more than half of the buildings requiring annual fire inspections had gone unchecked for three consecutive years. Between September 2018 and September 2019, 72 percent of schools and 70 percent of apartment buildings in Oakland had not been inspected. In the Fruitvale district where the Ghost Ship had stood, 273 buildings remained uninspected. The audit issued 30 recommendations, of which the city agreed to implement 29.⁸

The Site Today

The fire-damaged warehouse was demolished in May 2023. The site was purchased that same month by an affiliate of The Unity Council, a nonprofit social equity development corporation, for $2.56 million. As of late 2024, the organization had filed preliminary plans for a five-story, 58-unit affordable housing development, with all units reserved for low-income and very-low-income residents. The project, designed by Mithun and Yes Community Architects, envisions two connected buildings with skybridges featuring commemorative art and street-level walls for murals by local artists.²⁰²¹

Families of the victims have been working with architects, artists, and developers on a memorial at the property. As of late 2025, they hoped to have a temporary art structure in place by the fire’s tenth anniversary in December 2026, with a permanent memorial planned once the housing project is complete.²²

1
Courthouse News Service. Judge Signs Off on $32.7 Million Settlement in Ghost Ship Warehouse Fire
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The Oaklandside. Ghost Ship Warehouse Landlord Ng Bankruptcy Settle Lawsuit
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NBC News. What Was the Ghost Ship Collective
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CBS News. Records Reveal Oakland Ghost Ship Warehouse Troubled Past
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FireRescue1. Ghost Ship Report Details Difficult Recovery of Victims
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KRON4. Remembering the Victims of the Ghost Ship Warehouse Fire
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San Francisco Chronicle. Oakland Fire Victims
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FireRescue1. Audit: Oakland FD Still Failing to Inspect Buildings After Ghost Ship Fire
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San Francisco Chronicle. Oakland Fire
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ABC7 News. Ghost Ship Fire Verdict
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KQED. Ghost Ship Defendant Max Harris Acquitted of All Charges, Jury Hung on Derick Almena
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PBS NewsHour. 1 Acquitted in Deadly Ghost Ship Warehouse Fire, Jury Deadlocks on 2nd
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KTVU. Derick Almena Sentenced for Deadly Ghost Ship Fire but Avoids Prison
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ABC News. Defendant in Ghost Ship Fire to Serve Remainder of 12-Year Sentence at Home
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East Bay Times. Ghost Ship Owners Knew of Dangerous Electrical System Before Deadly Fire
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FireRescue1. Judge Rules Ghost Ship Fire Lawsuit Against PG&E Can Proceed
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NBC Bay Area. Oakland Struggles to Improve Building Safety While Preserving Arts Community in Wake of Ghost Ship Fire
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City of Oakland. Ghost Ship Fire Anniversary Update
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Mercury News. Bill Aimed at Improving Fire Safety Inspections Near Final Passage
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Silicon Valley.com. Oakland Ghost Ship Fire Property Development
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SF YIMBY. Permits Filed to Replace Ghost Ship Warehouse in Fruitvale, Oakland
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Mercury News. Grief, Glitter, and Ghost Ship: A Victim’s Mother Finds Solace in the Small Things