Shortly after we arrived home from Oregon Tuesday we smelled smoke and saw clouds of it billowing over a neighbor’s house a few backyards over.
After a moments hesitation over which of our many phones was the closest to grab and dial 9-1-1, I listened to one round of “we’re sorry we’re busy, please do not hang up” before describing the situation to the answering dispatcher. Geoff heard fire engines arriving and left to see what was going on.
After a quick conversation with the eventual live dispatcher, I grabbed my camera.
It looks grim, eh?
I love melodrama in real life as much as anyone.
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This firefighter surely was intent on urgent work. |
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What? You didn’t hear of the great Noe Valley Inferno of 2006? |
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Okay. Here’s a hint. A broader view of the what the firefighters in the original picture were looking at… |
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Fortunately, they’re not gazing at injured people at a home fire. Rather, it was an smoky MUNI truck engine. |
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Apparently a disabled 24 bus was being pushed back to the maintenance barn when the pushing truck caught fire. The smoke from the oily engine fire had gotten caught in the wind and come up over our neighbor’s home, making it appear that the tinderbox wood-frame house was burning. Whew! |
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I was there when it started. I remember walking up the hill when it passed me thinking why is a truck rated for 2 tons pushing a 15 ton bus up the hill. The engine was groaning and screeching, but the idiots pushed ahead. Just as I was about to get in my car, one block down the hill, did I notice it all starting.
It’s amazing how fast the fire department got there and how quickly they had it put out. From beginning to end it was less than 10 minutes.
Yep, the SFFD done good!
I imagine that all of us Noe Valleyites had jammed the 911 lines reporting a house fire and not a in-the-middle-of-the-street car fire. The SFFD response rained enough equipment on to the block to close Castro for quite a while.
What was the end result of that fiery car crash on Castro a month or so ago?
The story weirdly disappeared. The driver of the car that sped through the Castro causing the crash either did or did not have a seizure that accounted for his behavior. The possible seizure either was or was not his second in recent weeks. The media seems to have moved on… at least the ones I looked at didn’t do follow ups.
Cliff’s was closed the next morning, but all of the businesses came back.
The guy in the hit car is still dead.
I like the irony of the “ZERO EMISSIONS VEHICLE” legend on the bus just above the smoking truck.
I was liking that quite a bit myself!