5-alarm fire burn multiple buildings in Soma, San Francisco, entire building is gone
According to the fire department, five buildings of the fire department were burning down in San Francisco on Tuesday morning.
Fire officials said at least five commercial buildings were burning in the neighborhood of the market south of the city, causing the fire.
Firefighters responded to the area of Folsom and 13th streets at 7:15 a.m. in what started as a two-alarm explosion and quickly rose to five alarms.
The fire was first reported at 6:30 a.m. in a block of commercial buildings. San Francisco firefighters tweeted that a second alarm had been called at the blaze in the building in the 100 block of 13th Street at around 7 a.m. The intense fire was captured on Caltrans traffic cameras on the southbound 101 overpass.
As massive flames engulfed the building near Folsom and 13th St., firefighters quickly elevated the response to 5 alarms by 7:25 a.m.
“It was fully envolved when I got here,” said deputy fire chief Victor Wirsch. “It was rapidly spreading to a second building…We had huge problems with power lines initially.”
As the blaze jumped from building to building, firefighters were able to halt it before it damaged a building owned by the San Francisco Sheriff’s Department and containing boxes of live ammo in the basement.
Wirsch said there was a deputy on duty inside the building as fire approachec.
“I told him — ‘Get all the ammo out you can,'” the deputy chief said.
A San Francisco Fire chief did suffered a moderate head injury while battling the blaze and was taken to the hospital for treatment. His condition was not immediately available.
San Francisco Fire Chief Jeanine Nicholson said there were 160 firefighters and 60 pieces of equipment on the scene. She said “forward progress had been stopped” and the blaze was 75 percent contained at 9 a.m.
“This is what we train for,” she added.
The intensity of the fire triggered the building to col0lapse, forcing firefighters to make a defensive attack of the blaze as they fought to prevent it from spreading to nearby structures.
San Francisco police evacuated nearby homes on 14th St. and power lines were down in the area. PG&E was forced to shut down power to the nearby neighborhood and streets also were blocked off.
The fire turned a family-owned roofing construction company into a pile of smoldering debris and melted metal.
Nicholson said about 100 workers at firms housed in the damaged buildings had their jobs impacted by the blaze.
Social media was also flooded with frightening images of the fire as dozens of San Francisco firefighters raced to the scene to battle the blaze.
No injuries were immediately reported.
Fire officials said there were also live wires on the ground and urged the public to avoid the area.
