Huge fire destroys Mission Bay construction project

SF Gate – by Kevin Fagan, Jaxon Van Derbeken, Victoria Colliver and Vivian Ho

A fast-moving fire that consumed a large apartment building under construction in San Francisco’s Mission Bay neighborhood burned into the night Tuesday, but firefighters were able to keep the blaze from spreading to nearby structures.

The five-alarm fire engulfed the building on Fourth Street near China Basin Street just before 5 p.m., sending black smoke thousands of feet into the sky. Scaffolding melted as chunks of the six-story, 80-foot-tall building fell away. Fire Chief Joanne Hayes-White called it the city’s largest blaze in several years.  

Fire officials said the structure was likely to collapse.

“The open construction of the building allowed for rapid fire spread,” said fire Capt. Matthew McNaughton, adding that investigators have not determined what started the blaze.

Nearby buildings were evacuated as more than 150 firefighters battled the flames, using about 90 fire trucks and other apparatuses. The roof of UCSF’s Mission Bay research building, a block away, briefly caught fire, but it was quickly put out, McNaughton said.

One firefighter suffered minor burns, he said, but there were no other injuries.

The smoke “was like a huge mushroom cloud. It was as high as a plane,” said Gary “Slim” Forte, 38, who was among a large crowd of locals watching the fire. “It looked like somebody blew a nuclear weapon.”

Several dozen residents were evacuated from the Strata apartment building across Fourth Street from the construction site, and about 25 were gathered late Tuesday at anAmerican Red Cross evacuation center at Pier 54.

Firefighters still had not contained the blaze by 11 p.m. McNaughton said he expected crews to remain on scene until the morning. “We have a center core that looks like a volcano,” he said.

“We’re going to be putting water on it all night.”

Police said they expect street closures and a halt in Muni service on Third Street to continue until 7 a.m. Wednesday.

Construction began last year on the building, part of a 360-unit apartment complex being developed by BRE Properties on the west side of Fourth Street. It was set to be completed late this year.

BRE Properties officials issued a statement late Tuesday saying they believe the company’s insurance should cover the cost of damages.

The project stands in the midst of at least four other residential construction projects on or near Fourth Street south of Mission Creek. Together, they contain nearly 900 units.

Time to smolder

Hayes-White said most of the construction workers ended their day at the building around 4 p.m., but McNaughton said a few were still on the site when firefighters arrived.

Fire investigators believe that whatever sparked the blaze had as long as an hour to smolder. The building’s sprinkler system had not yet been installed, Hayes-White said, and, as a result, the fire “really took off..”

As sections of the building collapsed, firefighters aimed water cannons at adjacent buildings to keep the blaze from spreading to the rest of the neighborhood.

“This is a great save right here,” Hayes-White said, pointing to a building across the street. “We were able to put up a water curtain. To be able to save this is huge.”

Residents and workers in the area described the fire as a quick-moving, monstrous blaze.

Carlos Tovar of Manteca was operating a crane 228 feet in the air on another construction project as the apartment building burst into flames.

“I thought it was just a ladder on fire at first, but then as it really got involved, the heat climbed so quickly I could feel it on my cab,” Tovar said. “It moved fast, real fast.”

Watching fire spread

Tovar shot video with his smartphone as the flames built from just a flicker in the southeast corner of the structure, climbed to the roof and spread west. He said it soon began gobbling up the top part of the building.

As night fell, the smoke became white and the flames lessened, but Hayes-White said the structure was probably a total loss.

The building is “likely to come down,” Hayes-White said. “It will collapse. The more it burns, the more water we put on it, the more likely it is to fail.”

Local residents said the heat blew out windows and radiant heat burned the front of the Strata building. Residents were evacuated from the 192-unit building.

Fire Battalion Chief Richard McGee said evacuated Strata residents weren’t allowed to return home Tuesday night because the heat from the fire set off Strata’s sprinkler system. The system would have to be restored in order to be reactivated, he said.

Scott McGrath, 35, rushed back in a taxi from his job in the Financial District to the Strata. He said he was there to save his dog, but firefighters had already cleared the building of pets and people.

“I’m very appreciative,” McGrath said. “They were going around and trying to get as many dogs as they could.”

All around the building where the fire crews attacked, there were rivers of water strewn with debris and broken glass. Some shards were 20 feet from the building.

Crews manning three hoses kept up a stream of water on the southeast corner and the south face of the building even as the top floors collapsed.

One firefighter manning the crank on his hose wiped his forehead and said, “This is big, all right. Real big. Lots of water. That’s what does the trick.”

Clogged streets

Davi Lang, 27, lives in a houseboat a block away and saw the flames as they began their first leap into the air. She ran over and watched as the building was consumed.

“I was worried the water they were spraying on it wouldn’t even work, it was that huge,” she said. The scaffolding was melting, right as I watched. All of a sudden, the top floors just came crumbling down.”

Lang said the fire engines that rushed to the area first couldn’t get through the construction site because the sites are so tightly packed.

“And a lot of the streets aren’t even finished yet,” she said.

Hundreds of people lined up along China Basin to watch firefighters battle the flames a few blocks to the south. Along Berry Street on the north edge of the fire zone, onlookers kept trying to sneak through the fencing to get a better look at the fire. Security guards shooed them out.

San Francisco Chronicle staff writers Peter Fimrite and John King contributed to this report. Kevin Fagan, Jaxon Van Derbeken, Victoria Colliver and Vivian Ho are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. Twitter: @kevinchron, @jvanderbeken, @vcolliver,@vho

http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Five-alarm-fire-in-Mission-Bay-5308589.php