San Francisco Chronicle
SAN FRANCISCO — The San Francisco Fire Department begins a months-long celebration of its 150th anniversary Monday, April 18, the very date the city was almost destroyed by earthquake and fire.
Monday is a three-alarm event for followers of the city’s history. Just after 5 in the morning — the moment the huge quake struck in 1906 — 100 or so people will gather at Lotta’s Fountain at Market and Kearny streets in a commemoration that has become a city tradition.
Not long after that, a smaller group will show up at 20th and Church streets to spray a coat of gold paint on a hydrant that prevented the spread of the big fire and saved the Mission District.
And at 9, the Fire Department will celebrate its own anniversary with an event in Union Square. The department will be putting its best foot forward — new fire engines, antique fire equipment, a demonstration of an aerial ladder as tall as a six-story building and warnings about the chances for another big disaster.
Flimsy boom town
Fires have always been a menace in San Francisco, a city with a wooden heart. All the famous buildings are steel and concrete, but most of the residents live in wooden houses — in the Mission, in the prized Victorians of the Western Addition, in the stucco-covered homes of the Richmond and the Sunset districts. They’re lined up in rows, from the western hills to the ocean.
During the Gold Rush, San Francisco was a city built entirely of wood and canvas. It was a flimsy boom town if there ever was one. And on Christmas Eve 1849, a tremendous fire broke out. There was no defense, only men carrying buckets of water.
That night, a special meeting of the City Council decided that something must be done. All the big men of the time were there: Harrison, Ellis, Turk, Steuart, Green, Brannan, Davis. Streets were named for all of them later. John Geary presided. Out of that came the first volunteer Fire Department.
But the raw, new city continued to burn. Between 1849 and 1851, six huge fires devastated the city. San Francisco burned so often that the phoenix, a mythical bird that rises anew from its own ashes, became one of the symbols of the city.
The volunteers did their best, but it was never enough. The engines were pulled by manpower and the water was pumped by hand. The firemen, young and fit as a fiddle, were the elite. Lillie Hitchcock Coit, a young society woman, was the patron saint of the fire volunteers in those days, the toast of the town.
Kicking off celebration of 150 years of the San Francisco Fire Department, the best in the world! #SFFD150 pic.twitter.com/X4IUsNfMW8
— Edwin Lee (@mayoredlee) April 18, 2016
But time marched on, and soon it became clear that the city needed more than volunteer firefighters. In 1866, the Legislature passed an act permitting the organization of a paid professional San Francisco Fire Department. This is the anniversary the department is celebrating.
Powered by horses
The engine of change was the steam pumper, too heavy to be pulled by humans. Horses, specially trained, did the heavy work. The fire horses were so good that, according to fire historian Bill Koenig, they could clear the firehouse in 12 seconds pulling a steam fire engine.
But San Francisco was a disaster waiting to happen. A huge blaze that destroyed the big Baldwin Hotel and theater at Powell and Market streets in 1898 exposed a weakness: There was not enough water.
Dennis Sullivan, the fire chief at the time, urged the city to set up a high-pressure water system with cisterns and reservoirs, but the Board of Supervisors turned him down. Too expensive.
Leaderless department
On April 18, 1906, an earthquake rocked the city — and broke the water mains. Without water, the Fire Department was helpless.
The city burned for three days: the biggest natural disaster of 20th century America. Sullivan himself was fatally injured, and during its greatest test, the Fire Department was virtually leaderless.
The city was rebuilt, of course, time went on, and in the haze of nostalgia many San Franciscans fondly remember the middle years of the 20th century.
Celebrating the San Francisco Fire Department 150th Anniversary. #SFFD #SFFD150 pic.twitter.com/E4NxOrXEQC
— Chris Baker (@InstructorBaker) April 18, 2016
The Fire Department itself became an institution, a band of brothers. In 1955, San Francisco’s Fire Department was all white and all male. As huge changes swept over the city, the face of the department stayed the same. By 1970, there were only four African American firefighters out of 1,800 uniformed personnel.
The result was a long fight, lawsuits and bitterness that nearly tore the department apart. Now, according to the latest numbers, uniformed personnel in the department are 48 percent white, and 52 percent are from minority groups. Sixteen percent of the firefighters are women.
It’s a different world, with an emphasis in the department now on other services like providing emergency medical help. But the department still holds to bits of the past, including wearing leather helmets. “They look good, they are traditional and they are safe. We are not going to change,” said Chief Joanne Hayes-White. “Not on my watch.”
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