July 11, 2007
UPDATED: Twin Peaks Fire
Updated with picture from SFist reader Oscar. Thanks, Oscar. Here's the Google Street View picture of the house.
This is an SFist News Flash: a tipster reports that there's a house fire going on right now in Twin Peaks. The phrase "up in flames surprisingly quickly" was used to describe the situation. Oh noes! Traffic will probably be diverted, so plan your travel accordingly. Our sympathy goes to all parties involved.
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It was right at the top of 18th where it ends at upper market. It looked like flats and it was burning pretty badly. You could see lots of flames.
Hope everyone is OK
that address is actually Eureka Valley not Twin Peaks. It's only 5 or 6 blocks from the 18th and Castro corner.
Firefighters had to fight it from two sides - from 18th and from Market. It's incredible that no other houses went up.
Hat's off to the S.F. fire dept. that fire was intense.
thank goodness no one was seriously hurt!
But check out the two guys in the Google Street View photo. They are totally wondering what the heck that vehicle going by is. Plus there's a cute terrier.
I hope no one got hurt in the fire and I feel terrible for the loss of all that personal stuff.
Back up your data offsite!
This is the part of the Castro which has undergone the most gentrification. How many poor queers had already been forced out of their homes well before this conflagration, by people who care little for the neighborhood's cultural significance.
Could this be a case of karma?
-marc
I really hope #4 is someone pretending to be marc, because that is one flaming asshole.
[4] cruel asshole
This is for MattyMatt, who loves to ride the 33:
MUNI was running a shuttle on the 33 line this evening because, as you can see in the picture, this fire was right next to the overhead wires for the bus. Normally, I'd bike home in 30 minutes or so, but my front tire had a flat, so I was on the bus. I caught the regular 'lectric bus at 16th and Harrison and then transfered to the shuttle (one of them new hi-bred buses) at 18th and Castro. At first I was impressed that they had put this together, but I should have known better.
The shuttle bus only went as far as Haight and Stanyan, and then we were booted off the bus and told to take the regular 33, which would be along shortly. Just to be safe, I called 311 and checked NextMuni - 11 minutes. A bit of a wait but, no problem, there are worse things - my house could be on fire. A half hour later, still no bus, and 311 doesn't know what the deal is. Are they actually running the electric buses to the end of the line? How long of a wait would it be? Nobody knows. Here comes another shuttle bus, and a bunch more folks get to wait. The driver'd be happy to take us to the end of the line, but he doesn't have authorization from his supervisor to do that.
Finally, I got tired of waiting and walked home through the shadows of Golden Gate Park. Forced to walk in the road because the sprinklers are soaking the sidewalk. Not a big deal, I like to walk, and it only takes me a half hour to get home. Total trip time, 2 hours, over twice the usual 50 minutes when I ride the bus and waaay longer than biking. Would have been a lot less if I'd just started hoofing it right when I got off the shuttle, but MUNI did just enough to get me thinking they'd gotten it right before they stranded me.
It is frustrating to think that I'd have been better off taking the 24 line from 18th and Castro and then catching the 38 Geary home, but I got suckered in. Guess what I did soon as I got home? Fixed that flat. I'm mobile again, baby.
@ [4} that was totally uncalled for, but since you've brought it up. YOU don't understand the cultural significance of the Castro. The Castro (nee Eureka Valley) was from the very beginning about upper middle class gay men and lesbian trying to move out of the poorer South of Market and Polk Gluch neighborhoods. It was social climbing -- like New York Gays moving from the Village to Chelsea. Eureka Valley never wasn't gentrified. That was and is its main draw, passing among the gentry as it were. Sure it fell on some rough years in the 1980s as the AIDS epidemic hit hardest, but AIDS hit Polk and SoMa even harder basically wiping out Polk as the center of the gay community in SF.
Marc,
My family has lived here since the 1920's. The Castro/Eureka Valley is an inclusive community. It's certainly not made up of people who consider someone losing their home a form of karma.
Your comment was rude, cruel, and above all stupid.
Classy Marc, very classy....
Now, now -- let's not let him bait us.
That picture is pretty sobering for all of us who live in wooden houses...
marc - Karma will be when I pay some poor black people to burn down your house and replace it with an empty lot ;)