1st LD: Overnight fire kills nine in Oakland

An overnight fire killed at least 9 people while another 13 people were unaccounted for in Oakland, east of San Francisco, as of Saturday morning.

The blaze began at about 11:30 p.m. on Friday during a party at a warehouse in the San Francisco Bay Area city.

While citing the number of casualties as the result of "a preliminary search," Oakland Fire Chief Teresa Deloach-Reed told KTVU, a local affiliate of Fox News network, that "There's still a lot of the building that needs to be searched."

Oakland Fire Department posted several messages throughout the night on its Twitter social media network account, including the latest one in the morning saying that fire crews would remain on the scene for several more hours to extinguish hot spots. Endit