A small fire inside Berkeley’s police headquarters at 2100 Martin Luther King Jr. Way, at Center Street, forced officers and 911 dispatchers to evacuate on Wednesday evening, Oct. 21, 2026. Berkeley’s emergency calls were sent to Alameda County’s dispatch center for roughly four and a half hours.

Why it matters: The building houses the city’s Public Safety Communications Center, which answers Berkeley’s 911 calls. Police said officers kept responding to emergencies throughout, and the center was back to normal by about 10 p.m.

What happened

Shortly before 5:30 p.m., officers reported smoke and “water flooding the building” as staff evacuated, Berkeley Scanner reported. Authorities said the fire was small and started in an office, setting off the building’s sprinklers.

Attempts to shut the sprinklers off were hampered because the controls were reportedly secured with a padlock and chain, according to Berkeley Scanner.

At 5:28 p.m., police sent a Nixle alert: “All emergency 911 calls are being transferred to Alameda County Dispatch to dispatch emergency calls.”

Police told NBC Bay Area the fire was in a different part of the shared building from where calls are actually taken. Firefighters gathered outside the station on MLK Jr. Way.

When 911 came back

Berkeley Scanner reported the dispatch center had resumed normal operations as of 10:07 p.m., based on a later Nixle alert. NBC Bay Area said the announcement that the communications center was again taking 911 calls came just before 10:30 p.m.

What is still unknown

  • The cause of the fire.
  • How much damage the fire and the water did to the building.
  • Whether anyone was hurt. None of the reports mentioned injuries.

The first police alert did not say how, when or where in the building the fire started, and police and fire officials did not immediately answer follow-up questions Wednesday, Berkeleyside reported.

Days after new money for the dispatch center

The fire came less than a week after state Sen. Jesse Arreguín, D-Oakland, announced $1 million in state funding to modernize the same communications center, which handles about 180,000 calls a year. The money is meant to expand the center, upgrade software and technology to speed up response times, and create a wellness space for dispatchers, according to Bay City News.

Berkeley’s 911 dispatch is also one of the services the city lists for its proposed half-cent sales tax on the Nov. 3 ballot; see our Berkeley Measure V explainer.

None of the reports we reviewed included a cause or a damage estimate. We will update this story if officials release one.