San Francisco Fire Department

Jury Chosen in Anti-Weekly Suit

Anti-Weekly Suit Set for Take-Off

Are Firefighters Being Poisoned By Their Pants (Held Up With Red Suspenders)?

The joke referenced in the headline is most definitely not funny. But you know what's even less funny? Heavy metal poisoning. Firefighters in Boca Raton have persuaded the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to launch an investigation to determine whether flame-retardant pants are a contribut ... More >>

Letters

The joke referenced in the headline is most definitely not funny. But you know what's even less funny? Heavy metal poisoning. Firefighters in Boca Raton have persuaded the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to launch an investigation to determine whether flame-retardant pants are a contribut ... More >>

Where There's Smoke

Yet more allegations of racism and mismanagement reveal smoldering tensions within the Fire Department

East Wind, Rain

She's a talented action writer. If only her dialogue had the same power.

Board President

Smile, Thrasher loves you

Letters to the Editor

Week of May 21, 2003

Letters to the Editor

Week of May 14, 2003

Hosed

The Fire Department is a bloated fiscal mess that, thanks to union politics, won't face the budget cuts it should

Firehouse Blues

Firefighters are wondering why the renovation of two stations was awarded to a contractor with a history of construction problems

Letters to the Editor

Geez, Someone Didn't Get His Nap; New Design Gets Two Thumbs Up; Pouring Fuel on the Fire; Girls in the System

Pants on Fire

How the San Francisco Fire Department turned a manageable house fire into a lethal disaster -- and then tried to cover up its firefighting mistakes

Manifest Destiny

The Fire Department finds the easiest way to park in SOMA -- a land grab

The Grid

The Fire Department finds the easiest way to park in SOMA -- a land grab

Dog Bites

The Fire Department finds the easiest way to park in SOMA -- a land grab

Dream Job

Do you like sleeping, eating, shopping, reading, TV watching, Internet surfing, large amounts of overtime pay, and small amounts of actual work? You may have a future as a dispatcher for the San Francisco Fire Department.

The Fire Next Time

As a civil rights advocate, Bob Demmons called in the federal government to end racism in the Fire Department. Now that he's chief, he has to remove federal control and prove that firefighters can manage race relations on their own.

Growing pot in S.F. poses more than just legal risks

As a civil rights advocate, Bob Demmons called in the federal government to end racism in the Fire Department. Now that he's chief, he has to remove federal control and prove that firefighters can manage race relations on their own.

Burned: San Francisco Spurns State's Plea to Send Fire Strike Team to Battle SoCal Blaze

​While much of Southern California is currently blazing away like an old Christmas tree, we've got a little bit of a fire going on up here in San Francisco, too. It's a four-alarm blaze under John Hanley's collar. The head of the San Francisco firefighter's union is incensed that the SFFD has spur ... More >>

S.F. Fire Chief Defends Decision to Not Send Strike Team to SoCal Blaze -- Blames Firefighter Salaries, Benefits for Burning Through Too Much of Her Budget to Afford Equipment

Sorry lads. You're not going to SoCal.​Yesterday we reported that, despite the State Office of Emergency Services' pleas to California counties to send five-engine "strike teams" to battle the ongoing Los Angeles-area conflagration, the San Francisco Fire Department declined to do so. Both Fire Ch ... More >>

Do We Know How Many Spare Fire Rigs S.F. Has? Maybe. Will We Be Getting Money For Any More? Don't Count On It.

There's one! Count it! ​ Fire rigs are big, red, and noisy. You'd think that counting them would be a task roughly as difficult as tracking a bleeding elephant in the snow. Well, you'd be wrong. Last week, SF Weekly broke the story that, down to its last two spare rigs, the San Francisco Fire Depa ... More >>

Is ANOTHER Industry Insider Coming to the Entertainment Commission?

The commission will come to order​The applicants for a recently vacated seat on the city's Entertainment Commission -- a seven-member board of political appointees that regulates San Francisco nightclubs -- appear poised to once again stoke the debate over whether the commission is too cozy with t ... More >>

Under Fire

Mike Estrada was supposed to be ordered away from a burning building by his superior. It was just one of many mistakes that put him in harm's way.

Looks Like Water Department Sent Millions of Gallons Down the Drain in Mission Bay

Joe EskenaziDrained...​We've written a few stories about how the city's Water Department was allowing fire hydrants to run free for hours here in Mission Bay in order to flush the water mains. While this is a fairly common practice, it's a bit odd for the city to send untold gallons of what one Wa ... More >>

'Tis the Season -- For Bastards to Ignite Discarded Christmas Trees

If San Franciscans were in the habit of stacking boxes of unexploded shells, TNT cartridges, jerrycans of kerosene, and half-full bottles of Everclear outside their homes, it might be something residents saw fit to complain about. It might even force Gavin Newsom to say "I get it" a few times whil ... More >>

Snuffed Out

Massive layoffs, internal conflict, and decreasing morale have all contributed to a less effective arson unit.

Fatal Fire on Golden Gate Avenue

View Larger MapThe San Francisco Medical Examiner's office has identified the victim of a fatal fire last night on Golden Gate Avenue, but is not releasing the man's name until notification of his family. The fire occurred at about 11 p.m. at 1900 block of Golden Gate Avenue and claimed the single m ... More >>

Baylinks: Tonga Room, Bus Parties, & Bleeding Eyes

We like, we like to party.​When your bus gets delayed you can pout or you can throw a party. [Muni Diaries]Are you between the ages of 12 and 23? Do you love civic duty? Have we got the non-paying gig for you. [Richmond District]Did somebody bomb Duboce Park? [haighteration]Site hawking San Franci ... More >>

Fire Fighter Parks Porsche in Red Zone During Giants Game

The only official fire business on this day, apparently, was watching the Giants get burned​Last week, complaints about fire fighters improperly using their San Francisco Fire Department parking permits while leaving their cars strewn about town led the department to issue an official memo. Its me ... More >>

Car Immolated on Potrero Brings Back Bad Memories

It wasn't quite this bad. We think​ An automobile was set ablaze on Potrero Hill last night, and while it wasn't a portable toilet -- the most infamous item to be regularly burned in San Francisco in recent history, perhaps ever -- there's a history here, too. Was this the work of the infamous c ... More >>

Tenderloin Fire Started on Roof of Transitional Housing

​Yesterday's three-alarm blaze at the Taylor Street Center -- transitional housing for just-released prison inmates 111 Taylor Street in the Tenderloin -- started on the roof, where a construction crew had been working, Bay City News is reporting today.

HazMat Teams On Scene at Pier 96 Recycling Facility

​Update: "White powder" at recycling facility was Ammonium Phosphate, a fertilizer. See more after the jump. Reports are trickling in of workers at Pier 96 -- the city's recycling sorting facility, which is operated by Recology -- being sickened by some manner of "chemical."Televised images reveal ... More >>

Ammonium Phosphate, Which Sickened 12 Workers in S.F., Considered 'Non-Toxic'

WikipediaKeep this stuff out of your eyes, folks​This morning, SF Weekly reported on the "white powder" that sickened a dozen workers at the Pier 96 recycling facility and sent one to the hospital. While the term "white powder" evokes the very worst post-9/11 memories, the white powder in question ... More >>

Boogaloos Closes for Several Days Following Fire

Allan Ferguson/FlickrBoogaloos, in a rare line-free sighting.​As El Tecolote first tweeted, Boogaloos, the breakfast-lunch spot on Valencia and 22nd Street with the perennial line, is temporarily closed due to a fire. According to the public information office for the San Francisco Fire Depa ... More >>

School of the Epiphany's Gas Leak Scare Just Barbecue Leftovers

Back to class, kids...​A gas odor that the Excelsior District's School of the Epiphany to evacuate its students onto the playground was just the remnants of a weekend barbecue. School attendants tell SF Weekly that the rectory held a cookout this weekend, but left a propane tank open in the school ... More >>

Genius Thief Attempts to Steal Fire Department Emergency Vehicle

Ready to steal...​A thief who will likely never qualify for Mensa failed in his quest earlier this week to steal a highly visible, highly traceable fire department emergency vehicle. The description of the vehicle in question: "A San Francisco Fire Department emergency vehicle; red paint with ligh ... More >>

Christmas Tree Arson Evacuates Building -- 'Tis the Season

Fa la la la la...​An arson fire using a Christmas tree as kindling led to a frantic evacuation of an apartment building in Potrero Hill. Nobody was injured, but it was an unpleasant 4:30 a.m. wakeup call for the residents at Connecticut and Wisconsin streets. News reports stated that the Christmas ... More >>

Francis Rule, 96-Years-Old, Falls off Fire Escape to Death

Francis Rule this morning fell from one of these fire escapes​The medical examiner's office has identified the San Franciscan who fell to her death in the wee hours this morning: It is Francis Rule, who was 96 years old. There is still an "active investigation" as to why the nonagenarian plunged o ... More >>

San Francisco Students Accidentally Eat Rat Poison

Rat Poison Is Not Good For You​A group of San Francisco middle school students ate a tablet of rat poison that they found on a filing cabinet inside a classroom at Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School.Mindy Talmadge, a spokeswoman for the San Francisco Fire Department, said the incident happened a ... More >>

Crunching the Numbers Behind SF Public Employees' Bonuses

​In our cover story this week, we explore the little-publicized form of compensation known as "premium pay" -- a vast range of bonuses available to government employees for performing certain types of work, many of which are in their job descriptions.Categories of premium pay include bonuses for f ... More >>

San Francisco Wants Homeless People to Shower and Groom

A shower will get you farther in life than a college degree​Most people who live on the streets or in Portland, Ore., don't take showers -- and it's unsavory. But how can anyone expect a homeless person to find a job that pays them enough to live in an apartment if they don't lather up routinely?S ... More >>

Black Firefighters Say SFFD Officer Helped White Colleagues Cheat on Exam

A shower will get you farther in life than a college degree​Most people who live on the streets or in Portland, Ore., don't take showers -- and it's unsavory. But how can anyone expect a homeless person to find a job that pays them enough to live in an apartment if they don't lather up routinely?S ... More >>

Dude, Where's My Stash? Paramedics Ditch Faulty Narcotics Tracking System.

When you dip into the paramedics' stash, the world begins to look a little different...​The San Francisco Fire Department's paramedics division, which keeps a stock of federally controlled narcotics for pain control and sedation, will abandon a notebook-based tracking system that had put the drugs ... More >>

Fire Rages in SOMA

Much of Mission Bay and SOMA smells like a tinderbox at the moment as a three-alarm fire burns at Russ and Folsom. SF Weekly has dispatched web editor Jake Swearingen to the scene. Our calls to San Francisco Fire Department spokeswoman Mindy Talmadge have not yet been returned. More when we know mor ... More >>

SOMA Fire: Bourbon-on-BBQ Origin 'Just a Rumor'

Jake SwearingenBarbecue to go?​Rumors are swirling on the Internet that yesterday's blaze at the Park Hotel in SOMA was sparked by the moronic one-two punch of barbecuing indoors -- and pouring bourbon onto the coals. That may be, but the San Francisco Fire Department has yet to find any material ... More >>

Art Kenney, Fire Official, Didn't Help White Colleague Cheat on Test, Report Says

Did the Department of Human Resources douse a racial inferno in the Fire Department?​City investigators say Art Kenney, an assistant chief with the San Francisco Fire Department, did not help a white officer get an unfair leg up on a promotion exam, as had been alleged in an earlier complaint.On F ... More >>

Fire Department Doesn't Favor White Officers, City Says

Who's in charge here?​The Civil Service Commission has rejected accusations that the San Francisco Fire Department purged itself of African American supervisors by helping white officers cheat on an advancement test. Now, chief Joanne Hayes-White is free to appoint new, high-scoring assistant chie ... More >>

Vincent Perez, Anthony Valerio, S.F. Firefighters Killed in Blaze, to be Honored Friday at Funeral

Tony Valerio​San Francisco Fire Department will gather on Friday to honor two of their own who were killed while battling a blaze at a Diamond Heights home last week. Lieutenant Vincent Perez, 48, died Thursday after the fire and Anthony "Tony" Valerio, 53, was pronounced dead on Saturday morning. ... More >>

The Cost of a Funeral

Albert Law​Huge red ladder trucks from Alameda were parked along the Embarcadero this morning, and it wasn't difficult to figure out why. It's traditional that firefighters come from miles away to parade their apparatus at funerals. It's also traditional for them to park in front of churches a ... More >>