Crazy Photos Of A Major Fire On San Francisco's Fisherman's Wharf This Morning
Scrolling my Twitter feed this rainy Saturday morning I stumbled across the photos of a raging fire on Pier 45 in San Francisco. The photos that local Dan Whaley captured as the sun came up were amazing. It looks like he stayed up to document the entire thing until it was finally put out.
From KCBS Radio:
Over 100 firefighters are battling a large, four-alarm fire at a warehouse building at historic Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco.
Multiple 911 calls came in at about 4:15 a.m. Saturday in a building not used for tourism on the rear end of Pier 45, directly behind Fisherman's Grotto and Alioto's Restaurant.
Black smoke spread quickly across the eastern part of the city and could be seen for miles. The wild flames even damaged the first San Francisco Fire Department truck that made it to the scene.
San Francisco Fire Department Lt. Jonathan Baxter tells KCBS Radio part of a wall at the cement warehouse structure quickly collapsed, but no one was hurt when that happened. Firefighters were able to reposition their rigs and continue fighting the fire.
The the historic SS Jeremiah O'Brien Liberty ship was initially threatened by the fire, but was ultimately saved from the flames by the water-bound fire boat St. Francis. The St. Francis was put in a defensive position to protect the historic ship and was launched from The Embarcadero.
The O'Brien is one of two remaining fully-functional Liberty ships built and launched during World War II. It is permanently docked at Pier 45.
They don't know how the fire started yet but I'm glad no firefighters, tourists or workers were hurt.
To make this about myself somehow in true Kate fashion, here's Chaps & I a few piers down at Pier 35 (AKA Seal Pier). We went to do a thing about the seals but there were none, so we brought our own:
It's hard to tell but in my sunglasses you can see there are hundreds of annoyed tourists watching us on a big set of chair/stairs (we did this twice because we thought stretching out the embarrassment was funny) and I was dying inside, and we only got tipped $1 cash for our skills… BUT overall a good time was had. I have a cousin that lives there and in my Marine Corps days loved visiting from San Diego to tour around & hang out. Gettin boozy in wine country, Outside Lands, rugby at Oracle Park, having sudden-onset diarrhea at the Ghirardelli Chocolate factory after housing a peanut-butter chocolate sundae while hungover… Really love that city & am glad they were able to save that iconic pier & the ship.