Fire Damage Estimate Slashed to $1.5 Billion : Blaze: Crews take precautions as rains raise fears of mudslides in the East Bay. Death toll hits 24 and number of missing rises to 14.

As rain spawned fresh fears Friday that devastating mudslides lie ahead for the beleaguered East Bay, authorities said this week’s deadly wildfire caused less than half the monetary damage estimated in initial reports.

Earlier this week, Oakland’s city manager estimated that losses from California’s worst brush fire would total $5 billion, a figure that would have made the blaze the costliest in U.S. history. On Friday, that number was slashed to $1.5 billion.

“The $5-billion figure was basically an error,” said Ezra Rapport, Oakland’s deputy city manager. “When you’re running around trying to put out a fire and begin rebuilding, finding a precise figure (for losses) is not your biggest priority.”

Rapport said the $1.5 billion includes costs associated with the destruction of more than 3,000 homes, 2,000 vehicles and other property as well as damage to roads, utilities and other pieces of the region’s infrastructure.

By nightfall Friday, rain was falling steadily in the East Bay, but officials said it had not yet triggered the slides that geologists say could bring still more disaster to Oakland and Berkeley.

“It’s not falling too hard right now, but we are worried about the heavier storms in the forecast (for Sunday and Monday),” said Oakland Councilman Dick Spees.

Spees said crews spent Friday clearing creeks and drainage channels, scattering sandbags on the barren hillsides, constructing flood control barriers and replacing burned retaining walls with bales of hay.

“The potential for mudslides is a disaster in the making,” said Berkeley Mayor Loni Hancock. The fear, experts said, is that tons of rocks and mud--which could easily be loosened by heavy rain because flames destroyed roots as well as brush and trees--could pour onto homes at lower elevations.

Meanwhile, the death toll from the blaze, which charred 1,800 acres in some of the Bay Area’s most unique and pricey neighborhoods, inched upward to 24 on Friday, and about 150 volunteers continued their gruesome search for victims.

The list of missing was expanded to 14 as worried people continued to contact authorities about friends and relatives who have not been seen since the fire.

Despite the drizzle, a team of 15 arson investigators continued to prowl the charred hillsides for clues to the fire’s cause, a process that Oakland Police Capt. Jim Hahn said could take weeks or even months.

“We’re looking at several different scenarios and are attempting, very methodically, to put together the origin and cause of this fire,” said Hahn, chief of the Police Department’s Criminal Investigations Division.

Hahn questioned earlier reports that the fire may have been sparked by workers burning debris at a hillside construction site, saying investigators have not confirmed that any intentional burning occurred in the area.

“People may have seen burning, but whether that was the origin of this fire is a very different question,” Hahn said. While the fire is classified as “suspicious in origin,” that does not mean it was deliberately set, Hahn said.

“When you have a fire that is suspicious, that means you’ve ruled out lightning strikes and other natural causes,” he said. “That doesn’t mean arson. It could be anything from somebody putting a cigarette down to a little kid running through the area with a sparkler, accidental things. . . . One thing I can say is there appears to be a human factor involved.”

Among the new names added to the list of identified victims was a UC Berkeley sophomore, believed to be the only student from the school killed in the fire.

A campus spokesman said Segall Livnah, 18, a biology major, was trapped by the flames while studying Sunday at her mother’s Oakland hills home.

Livnah, who was alone in the house, was apparently unaware of the fire danger until 11:45 a.m., when she left a frantic telephone message on her brother’s answering machine before making an unsuccessful dash for safety.

The university has established a scholarship fund in Livnah’s name, and is offering grants of up to $400 and emergency loans of up to $250 to Berkeley students who lost their housing and possessions in the fire.

Times campus correspondent Jennifer Packer contributed to this story.