Bako is burning: A Calif. downtown disappears one landmark at a time |
The call came in just after 4 a.m. on what would turn out to be a triple-digit midsummer Central Valley morning last June. In a neglected neighborhood adjacent to downtown Bakersfield, flames and smoke rose high above the city skyline, captured by overnight news crews as first responders in constant motion attempted to combat an out-of-control blaze that took down a Central California landmark.
Firefighters did their best to save the important piece of the city’s history. By dawn, all that was left was a burned-out shell of what was once one of Bakersfield’s most recognizable buildings.
The 7Up bottling plant was a spectacular 20th-century specimen unlike any other, a rare art deco survivor from the late 1930s. Its revolving neon sign often signaled to the valley’s prodigal returnees that they were home once more. Even in repose, the hollowed-out plant had anchored the corridor just east of downtown known as Old Town Kern.
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An exterior view of the 7Up bottling plant in Bakersfield, Calif., on Tuesday, Nov. 11, 2025.
The two-alarm blaze was an all-too-familiar sight. Fire after fire, one by one, the landmarks here are disappearing.
“Bakersfield has a lot of very historic buildings and, unfortunately, over the last several years we’ve seen a lot of those catch fire,” Chris Borden, a battalion chief at the Bakersfield Fire Department who heads the arson division and its four full-time investigators, told SFGATE. “It bothers me both professionally and personally. We work very hard to try to protect those buildings.”
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Not all structures taken out are beloved, but every single one lost is emblematic of more serious, systemic problems, fire officials said.
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On April 14, a warehouse fire sent up a stack of toxic black smoke that could be seen throughout town, at least the third recent fire at that warehouse. It was an apparent case of absentee ownership and a risky, unattended structure burning out of control for all to see in the heart of the city.
Firefighters arrive at a structure fire in Bakersfield, Calif.
Local architect Daniel Cater, who specializes in downtown development and redevelopment projects, recognizes the precariousness here that manifests in an irreversible event happening nearly every week.
While he said there are many factors going on at once that lead to the fires in the urban core, he’s observed that landlords who aren’t present or active on their properties is one common thread: “It’s a lot easier to be an absentee landlord rather than a present landlord,” he said. “... The city council, in my observation, has taken a more active approach — identification of who ownership is — creating minimum standards so hazards are prevented.”
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Another contributing factor, according to both city and fire officials, is the city’s unhoused population, which has been a growing problem in the city’s downtown core over the past two decades even as recent numbers start to show improvement. According to the county’s 2025 point in time count report, the unsheltered population in the metro Bakersfield region decreased by 10% from 2024. The number of unsheltered individuals here, however, is still 1,185.
Whatever the root cause, statistics reveal just how prolific the fires in Bakersfield are. In 2024, there were 582 fires in residential buildings and an additional 534 fires in commercial or public buildings, contributing to 5,115 total fires for the year, out of 48,732 responses to calls in that timeframe. “I would say the number is the same or increased for 2025,” Bakersfield Fire Department battalion chief and spokesperson Alexander Clark told SFGATE.
In its 2025 annual report, the arson unit investigated 433 incidents, BFD said. “The unit made 28 arrests, responded to 2 fatal incidents, and documented 10 burn injuries,” the report stated.
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Borden said tracking the data over the past several years shows these types of incidents “became a reality, almost a daily reality, in the arson unit here,” he explained.
Fire department officials also believe that making that data-driven connection between the city’s unhoused residents in its urban core and fires will eventually enable them and the city to calibrate the services needed. This, in turn, will ultimately impact, and hopefully decrease, the number of fires in the downtown corridor.
Bakersfield Fire Department battalion chief and spokesperson Alexander Clark told SFGATE that members of the unhoused population are often taken off the street, put in jail for a few days, and then released back on the street “without the support [that] was needed.”
More importantly, it will inform policy to get individuals the help they need.
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“We can better track how much call volume is associated with the homeless population,” Bakersfield Fire battalion chief Clark told SFGATE. “If we do have a fire that’s arson-related, what percentage of that population is starting those fires?”
Clark recognizes a pressing need for increased services for the unhoused. “Our homeless have mental health problems, and a lot of it is related to drug use,” he said, noting that members of the unhoused population are often taken off the street, put in jail for a few days, and then released back on the street “without the support [that] was needed.”
A “focus on the mental health side” he said, could potentially lead to a “homeless decrease and a decrease in arson or accidental fires.”
Firefighters arrive at a structure fire in........