Town Hall with the San Francisco Firefighters Representatives
By Sebraleaves and ChucklesByTheBay
Coalition for San Francisco Neighborhoods (CSFN) held a Town Hall Meeting, in March 2023, with guest speakers Adam Wood, Secretary of Firefighters Local # 7987 and Matthew Schwartz, President of the San Francisco Fire Chiefs Association. They explained how firefighters are handling some of the new traffic and street changes that are being established as part of the San Francisco policy to calm and slow traffic on our streets.
The San Francisco Fire Department is staffed with highly dedicated professionals who care about our city. They are concerned that local residents are not being given all the information they need in order to make informed decisions. Residents need to understand the public safety trade-offs involved in the city’s recent road changes.
Every second counts in firefighting in a dense crowded city like San Francisco. Fire spreads easily between connected buildings so they must act fast to protect human life and property while keeping the fire from spreading.
Adam Wood is stationed at 19th and Folsom, a few blocks from Capp Street. He is familiar with conditions on Capp Street and understands why the neighbors want to curb the action on the street. He just wants them to be aware of the tradeoffs they are making by slowing response times if emergencies arise on those streets with the barriers.
Speaking on behalf of the firefighters he represents Adam Wood, said, “We are going to do what we need to do to get the job done, but, we can’t pretend that the obstacles that slow traffic do not make our job — protecting human life and property by rescuing people, putting out fires, and keeping fires from spreading — harder, when it takes longer to preform our duties.”
Normal Fire Department protocol involves a number of vehicles responding to the scene.
Fire department operations involve a number of vehicles that arrive from multiple stations. The closet fire department send a truck and engine and they set up to fight the fire, but they rely on backup vehicles coming from multiple stations and multiple directions. Physical obstacles such as road diets, slow streets, speed humps, closed streets, lane reductions and barriers slow them down and may force route changes, and that impacts public safety.
Capp Street was a final straw far for some emergency responders.
The Capp Street barricades have created conflicts. Residents have not reached a consensus, but, It appears the Police Chief intends to leave the street barriers where they are for now. First, they installed wooden barriers but those were torn down. They were replaced by concrete boulders.
Adam Wood broke down the concerns of the firefighters by describing how they must work around the barriers and how this could hamper their ability to do their job if a fire erupts mid-block on Capp while the barriers are in place.
In case of a fire on Capp Street midblock between 19th and 18th Streets when you can only enter from 19th Streets certain limitations will slow efficiency and the speed of the firefighters’ efforts.
Under basic operations when there is a building fire, the closest fire truck and engine, from 19th and Folsom station would enter the block by taking a right off 19th onto Capp. They would begin operations with 500 gallons of water in the engine and 1000 feet of hose.
The engine cannot sustain fire suppression operations on its own. It depends on additional engines with added water that can hook up to the nearest fire hydrant to supply continuous water. Other engines would be coming from Sanchez and 14th, 16th and Vermont Streets, and another truck would come from 26th and Church. The second truck’s job is to stand by in case firefighters gets into trouble fighting the fire and need relief.
With the current barriers on Capp all the rigs must enter and exit through a funnel to get to the mid-block location. Without barriers they would have the flexibility to come in from both sides. With the barriers in place it will take longer to get the essential apparatus to the fire.
Street alterations effect the work of the Firefighters in a number of ways
Including mirrors, fire trucks are 9.5 feet wide. The ladder trucks include a second driver who is in charge of driving an attached vehicle that has a separate set of wheels from the larger truck. A fire truck is a complicated system that makes its way down the road. The typical lane width until recently was 12 feet, but, some lanes are being cut down to less than 11 feet wide, putting a strain on all the wider vehicles on the road including fire trucks. The curved streets make navigating safely more difficult. Narrow streets make extending the counterweights on either side of the truck when the ladder is up more difficult to set up swiftly and safely.
Time is of the Essence in Fighting Fires.
When Matthew Schwartz, President of the San Francisco Fire Chiefs Association joined us he stated, “Fire Chiefs do have concerns with programs that slow their response time like the slow streets, bulbouts, closed streets, narrow lanes, speed humps and shared spaces. In order to avoid traffic obstacles on narrow streets with impassable traffic, firefighters often have to re-route onto smaller, residential streets that are not designed for fast traffic. Timing is Crucial when responding to Emergencies. Our success depends on Speed and Access. Time is of the essence. 20 or 30 years ago you had to exit a burning building in 7 minutes. Now you must exit it in 3 minutes.”
There are a lot of moving parts. The Fire Department plays whack-a-mole with the MTA projects. There is no holistic look at the impact the projects have on public safety. They have been able to work with the MTA on some projects that help the Fire Department, but, they definitely have issues with other SFMTA projects that remain unresolved.
The ability of fire companies to get to the fire, provide redundant water sources, and ladders for rescues, is worth its weight in gold. They are the insurance policy. There is too much emphasis on data and it is hard to quantify their needs through data.
We left the meeting with a better understanding of how firefighters work and how important it is for them to be able to get to the fire and put it is out to protect lives and property and how important it is to support their efforts. We can certainly appreciate all the work emergency responders are doing during this year’s storms.
