The fire department cordoned off Valencia between 22nd and 23rd to put out a fire. Bikes could still go through. Gawkers were in luck: they could have some of the best coffee in SF right across the street at Ritual Roasters while watching the SFFD get at it. ...

Hey, it's another Polk post, folks! We're thankful to Flickr user Lulu Vision for giving us a heads-up in the SFist Contribute section regarding tonight's Lower Polk Neighbors meeting with SF Fire Department Chief Joanne Hayes-White about Fire Station 3 and how they're trying to make us all go deaf with their sirens. Hilariously enough, this fire station is located right next to Diva's and Grass Roots. Why would they ever want to leave? From......

A PG&E plant in the process of being torn down collapsed and killed a worker and injured two others today. Earlier this afternoon in an abandoned Pacific Gas and Electric Co. power plant in Bayview-Hunter's Point, workers who had been hired by the utility leviathan to remove the large boiler "had tied cables to the boiler, but it collapsed prematurely, raining debris down upon the workers." The five-story-tall walls of the power plant caved in,......

We've got rain, and we've got fire: two blazes within about twelve hours of each other in SF. The Globe restaurant in downtown will be shut down for a few weeks for repairs, after a one-alarm fire last night. The fire department says the fire was started by grease stuck in the restaurant's flue. Also, this morning, the SFFD is fighting a fire in an abandoned building on Mission and 7th that's threatening their own......

Two people were killed this morning after a single-alarm fire broke out at the Star of India restaurant on Polk and Broadway. "The kitchen was fully involved in flames when firefighters arrived," said San Francisco Fire Department Lt. Mindy Talmadge according to Bay City News. The bodies were found in a loft space just above the kitchen. Also, "one firefighter's foot fell through the floor of the loft," prompting the crew to leave until......

No signs of slowing down: Someone was stabbed on a MUNI bus at 16th and Mission today a little past 1 p.m. this afternoon. "One person was transported to a hospital with undisclosed injuries, according to the fire department," says CBS5, via Bay City News. And be careful out there, kids.......

Earlier this morning, Forensics Analytical Lab in Hayward called the fire department for help because they'd spilled a bunch of picric acid. Dry picric acid is apparently very sensitive to shock and friction, and can explode like dynamite. This one article we found says it blows up when you drop a 2 kg weight on it, from just 36 cm above. (Metric units because the article is Canadian.) Yikes! So all the other businesses in......

Banner week for SFist as the site's new editor introduced himself -- hooray for Brock! While the NY Times weighed in on SF's mayoral race, only SFist had the (insert tongue firmly into cheek) hard-hitting latest on candidate/activist Josh Wolf. Coverage of a protest vs. gentrification spawned a fantastic debate amongst SFist's readers. Finally, from the sublime to the ridiculous: video of a man that confused a Board of Supes meeting with "open mic......

The dapper and dreamily salt-and-pepper Dan Noyes recently culled 911 calls, dispatch tapes, and police and fire departments radio traffic surrounding last year's failed rescue attempt of 27-year-old Nick Torrico. High atop a Nob Hill building, Torrico plunged to his death one sunny afternoon. Apparently, Vic Wyrsch, a fire fighter from Station One, in an appropriate fit of heroism, grabbed Torrico to save him from the ledge. When a struggled occurred, Torric fell and......

It's our week up on the weekly-reading duties! Last week's winner from SFist Sarah L, the SF Weekly. A letter writer says: "While Matt [Gonzalez] may not be the next Picasso (but don't count him out)..." It doesn't matter what the rest of the letter says. The SF Fire Department gave a bad test. Cover article: We hate baby boomers and their dirty self-centered hippie ways. Carnivorous plants! Yay, the SFIFF! A flyer fell out......

A former San Carlos mayor is filing an appeal of his conviction for defrauding the Belmont-San Carlos Fire Department out of $13,000, by using public funds to pay for a political consultant who failed to win a campaign back in 2003. The fountain at San Jose State smells bad. An occupational therapy major says it's this year's "stank smell," as opposed to last year's, which was their trees. However, a business management major says he......

After cracking down on the North Beach Street Festival and the Jazz Fest, it looks like the Powers that Be are all set to crack down on North Beach itself. At issue is the Broadway section where complaints have been made about all sorts of drunken behavior. Stuff like fights and public drunkenness and underage drinking and rowdy behavior and even the occasional non-monkey knife fight. So on Thursday, the city announced a crack down on the Broadway section of North Beach. Said Aaron Peskin in describing the weekend scene, it's a "virtual war zone" by which he means it's like a war zone except without the bombs, bullets, death, mayhem and anything that would make it anything like a war. ...

What better way to celebrate Independence Day than with new plays that unapologetically explore the state of the nation?...

Six orphaned ducklings are in foster care at the Walnut Creek Lindsay Wildlife Museum, after an errant left-turner failed to make way for their mother as she was crossing North Main and Parkside. It's very sad, yes, but this article is also kind of hilarious (and it spells "quack" without the c, which we think is kind of controversial). Also, we learned that If you're trying to attract ducks to your backyard pool, you should take out those inflatable swans and motorized boats, which scare them away. From small water creatures to large -- remember our buddy the angry sea lion in Berkeley? He's back! ....and a man in Redwood City had an odd stoplight experience -- just as he pulled up to the intersection of Whipple and Elwood, a 40 foot tree fell on his convertible. "The car was so full of branches we couldn't see him," said the Redwood City battalion fire chief. Making matters weirder, when the fire department got there, they found a nest of baby raccoons at the bottom of the tree. They extracted convertible man, and had the Peninsula Humane Society deal with the babies. The man wasn't injured. Picture of ducklings from ABC 7...

One hundred years ago this month, San Francisco survived an earthquake. You may have heard of it. Well, despite the odds (and the sky-high earthquake insurance rates), people keep moving here, and San Francisco's celebrating 100 years of rebirth and survival. The big day is April 18. And there's no shortage of things to do! Just to pick events randomly: the Commonwealth Club is holding a panel discussion about the 1906 quake on April 17. The SF Fire Department's historical society is sponsoring the 1906 Expo at Pier 48, from April 15-17, which will feature historical exhibits and modern-day preparedness events (and a costume party!). And City Hall will host a photo exhibit about post-1906 rebuilding (and a show about the PUC and Hetch Hetchy. It's so Bay Guardian!). And, like they have for the last 35 years, history buffs will meet at Lotte's Fountain on 3rd and Market, and then paint gold the one hydrant in SF that didn't fail in 1906 (on 20th and Dolores). Warning, though, the fountain meetup starts at 4:30 a.m., because that's when the quake hit. Adding insult to injury (if the quake itself wasn't injurious or insulting enough), they're expecting huge crowds for this event, to the tune of giant screens on Market Street showing the scene in closed-caption. The fountain gets painted at 7:30 a.m. We sincerely hope KRON 4 labels this program clearly so we can just TiVo it to watch later. Lots and lots and lots of other events after the jump -- we'll try and update this periodically as the big day gets closer. Let us know if we've left anything out too! Picture of the post-quake Financial District from the Virtual Museum of the City of San Francisco...

Funny, we thought, as we stared blankly out of our downtown office window this morning. That's an awful lot of cop cars speeding down the street. Then we got an email from SFist Karen, asking if anyone had heard about a fire around Stockton Street. We checked the breaking news and it turns out there was a track fire on the BART between the Embarcadero and Montgomery Street stops. Witnesses (including SFist Karen) report seeing......

Ready, aim.... and look out for firebugs this Saturday at the Noe Valley Farmers Market, as the Neighborhood Emergency Response Team (NERT) and the SF Fire Department highlight this month's safety theme, "Light My Fire And Put It Out Safely Month." (that's an awesome theme.) So along with your organic oranges and leafy greens, reps from the fire department will be setting fires in the parking lot and inviting local residents to put them out. You're encouraged to bring your home fire extinguisher so you can practice using it too. We're so intrigued by this combination of "what a great idea!" and "what a terrible idea!" that this represents that we've gotta check this out. NERT runs free disaster-prep training classes throughout the city and works with neighborhood groups to coordinate emergency plans. For instance, NERT, working with the Noe Valley groups, learned that their plans to use the James Lick Middle School parking lot as their post-disaster staging area was in conflict with the school's plans to use that same parking lot to gather students. It may not matter, though, because both NERT and the school then subsequently learned that city experts are saying that the parking lot's retaining wall may collapse in an earthquake anyways. Note to self: don't go into the James Lick parking lot after an earthquake. ...

We'd like to take a moment to break from our usual schedule of links to Gavin Newsom gossip, Web 2.0 snark and other Frisco-centric blog boosterism to highlight the plight of Survival Research Labs. Apparently a quarter-century of creating literally bleeding-edge art from the electro-mechanical detritus of the modern world isn't enough to keep the bulldozers at bay. That's right, having already been blacklisted by the San Francisco Fire Department from ever performing in......

We're kind of on a pro-BART kick today -- which may be due in part to the fact that we've been taking the BART down to Millbrae all week. We understand that not too many of you are doing that, which may explain why we haven't heard very much about the coolest station art ever, these totally rad pictures/murals on the walls of the South San Francisco BART station. The picture above doesn't do it justice, but they're holographic scenes. They show these little pictures of local scenes, like sailboats and California history -- but as the train zips by (or as trainwaiters walk by), the pictures change! They're like art versions of flipbooks! Animated murals! IT IS SO COOL!!! For example, one of the pictures is a series of photos from the South SF Fire Department showing a firefighter sliding down a pole. Other pictures include the changes on South City's Grand Avenue, factory workers, and the biotech industry (we haven't seen that one yet, but we hope it's a DNA strand undergoing transcription and translation). How'd they do it? Is it something about polarized glass? The only news article we could find about it says something about "multifaceted glass tiles," but isn't that just like our kitchen counter? It doesn't show us scenes of South City. Could someone please explain it to us? Meanwhile -- if you're heading down South Bay-wards, or just glumly staring out the window with your roller bag wedged between your knees on the way to SFO, make sure you look out when you get to the South City BART stop. Public art at its best! Picture from the South SF city site...

What with the news today about the dead baby found in a dumpster in Redwood City, we'll copy KTVU and pass along some information about the Safe Haven (or Safely Surrendered Baby) law. We hope no one reading this site'll ever need it. In California (along with 45 other states), a woman has three days after the birth of a child to surrender the baby to a designated "safe haven," such as a hospital or fire department, without fear of prosecution. The parent, or a person with lawful custody, must bring the baby to the safe haven and indicate that the baby is being left under the Safe Haven law. No questions may be asked, unless the child looks like it's been abused. The FAQ is here (.pdf). The Safe Haven location will immediately tag the baby with a coded id bracelet, and will make an effort to give a replica bracelet to the surrendering adult and take a medical history. If the baby is left at a hospital, they'll do a medical exam. Within 48 hours, the Safe Haven must contact the child welfare authorities. A surrendering parent has 14 days in which to reclaim the child, pursuant to the usual standards by which the child welfare authorities normally give children back to parents. Babies can be left at any hospital, or at most fire stations. From January 2001-September 2004 (.pdf), 64 babies were surrendered under the Safe Haven law, out of 125 reported abandoned infants. 39 of the 64 were surrendered within hours of birth. Only 3 parents filled out medical questionnaires, and only 1 person has attempted to regain custody (she later abandoned the attempt). The age range of mothers goes from 15 to 42. ...

Hope y'all had a Merry Fitzmas. -After the umpteenth and fifth non-sell-out, the Oakland Raiders "brain-trust" have started to think that maybe all their ticket trouble could have something to do with the fact that a lot of people are kind of afraid about going to Raiders games. After all, Raiders fans have a reputation for being a little on the dangerous side. Some would even say drunken hooligans who like to beat the......

We find this latest spate of murder-suicides (his dentist????) too depressing to go into right now, and the Vitale murder just gets sadder and sadder -- so it's a Friday Blotter of Other Crime. Geraldo Rivera's brother Craig was arrested on a DUI in Walnut Creek. Craig Rivera was working with Mark Furhman on a story for his brother's new show, about the Pamela Vitale murder (of course). A jury sentenced Marques Lott to life in prison for the killing of a college student right outside the Rockridge BART station in 1997. The victim, Lisa Smith, was an English major at St. Mary's who was taking Chinese classes at Berkeley over the summer. Lott, who is schizophrenic, was off his medication and decided to kill someone coming home late at night. ....and care to try J. Lo's Glow? The SF Fire Department was called to Macy's yesterday afternoon after a number of patrons reported "very mild respiratory distress" from a mysterious odor. Macy's claims it wasn't coming from inside the store, but the SFFD couldn't tell either way. ...

Bad karma, man! Someone stole an SF Fire Department SUV while its legitimate driver was responding to a medical call early Monday morning. SFFD policy is to leave the cars in the ignition so they can leave the lights on (maybe time to revisit the policy), but lock the doors (which the firefighter forgot to do). The 'jacker hit five other cars before abandoning the SUV at Fillmore and Golden Gate and running off with a bag of medical equipment. Roll these up and smoke 'em: A pound of pot found in a jauntily-attired teddy bear (check out the picture!) in Rohnert Park, and Barrett Robbins arrested again for pot possession while awaiting trial on attempted murder charges. The reward fund for the 10 ducks killed at the car wash has grown to around $10,000. They've used the money to start a tip line, at (408) 866-2729. ... and so much news, the Blotter goes to four paragraphs today! It's kind of busy over there at the SFPD: a body found in Chinatown, a body found in Buena Vista Park, and the cops found a rocket launcher in an abandoned car at Pier 70 in Dogpatch. ...

Brian Rossiter, the owner of "the most famous hand in America," has begun lashing out at reporters, describing his life as "hell" since the news broke that he sold his severed finger to Anna Ayala and her husband Jaime Placensia for $50 to drop in a bowl of Wendy's chili. Rossiter's mood seems to have darkened from Wednesday, where he was reported to have gone to his favorite bar, waved his hand around, and got his buddies to buy him numerous shots of his favorite drink, Goldschlager. Goldschlager? A prominent doctor at SF General was found murdered in the doorway of his house in Diamond Heights. Police are focusing on cherry pits strewn around the house and outside in his yard as possible clues. And the police have a man in custody who set fire to a building across the street from the Old Mint in SoMA last night. The man was seen running out of the building with a jar filled with liquid and screaming that he was involved with the fire. The SF Fire Department rescued six residents in the building who were either trapped in their apartments or had fled to the roof. ...

This first story is so good (thanks, SFist Jon!), we've had to wait until two other animal stories popped up in the local news just so we could do an Animal Roundup about it! A heroic African parrot named Mango is recovering after breaking up a raucous fight in the South Bay. The guilty party, named Grady Powless, rooms with a guy named Joey, who's lost both his legs. Powless got in some kind of fight with Joey, over a shirt, and ended up hurting his teeth. The next day, Powless, still sulky, came in, kicked legless Joey in the crotch, and threw a flower pot and a barbecue grill lid at him. As Mango's owner tried to intervene in the fight, Mango flew in to help and began dive-bombing Powless. Powless freaked out, started pulled out some of Mango's tail feathers to protect himself, and the cops came and took Powless away. Powless, who has mental problems, is being looked after, and Mango's tail feathers should grow back. Surprisingly, no word on legless Joey! Obligatory two other stories about animals: A poodle being illegally walked off-leash at Fort Mason got stranded on the cliff, and the Animal Care and Control officer sent out to help got stuck on the cliff too. The coast guard saved the poodle and the fire department saved the ACC officer. The Oh, we so hope this gets on Animal Cops SF! And a Marin woman's 50-year-old tortoise has run away (the article's pretty funny). ...

The second-in-command of the San Francisco Fire Department, Deputy Chief Fred Sanchez, stepped down yesterday due to controversy over his actions involving a drunk battalion chief. Some people just can't take the heat, we guess. Uhh, sorry, bad joke. We begin our story last Friday when Battalion Chief Stephen Gritsch showed up at HQ drunk. At 9 in the morning. While several people commented on Gritsch's alcohol breath, Sanchez didn't do anything about it. In......

We knew that bag of 100 IKEA tea lights would come in handy one of these days! Yet another fire at that same PG&E substation that keeps bursting into flames blacked out 22,000 customers in San Francisco on Saturday night. You may remember this substation as the same one that caught on fire on the last shopping day before Christmas in 2003, was left to burn for 2 hours as PG&E went into denial about the whole thing, caused a huge blackout throughout the city for over 24 hours, and was blamed for single-handedly ruining merchants' sales for the entire year (at a cost of $4 million)? PG&E claims they've learned from the past and called this one in as soon as the smoke alarm went off. (Can't slip anything by those folks.) However, the SF Fire Department is annoyed that PG&E told them it was okay to fight the fire with water, claiming that the fire was not water-safe, the water caused a huge explosion and increased the scope of the power outage, and fire fighters might well have been killed. PG&E, after first saying that this sort of thing should be expected when you're fighting fires in the first place, is now claiming no explosion actually happened. Hm. Any good blackout stories? We can report that we were in the Haight, where we didn't notice a single thing out of the ordinary because Amoeba Records was lit up like Christmas. Does Amoeba have its own generator or something? Picture of PG&E substation from ABC 7...

Today, Gavin Newsom put a lid on places that sell lids and called for a moratorium on marijuana clubs. And we bet we're the only one's in the -ist family who'll ever have to write a story like this about their Mayor. What caused the moratorium is news that came out last week that a new marijuana club, the Holistic Center, had opened right below one of those Care Not Cash welfare hotels set up......

Fool them once, shame on you; fool them twice -- well, the second time Alameda resident Marc Marmor's house caught on fire, the suspicious fire department finally figured out he'd accidentally started both blazes by smoking in bed. The first fire, two days before Christmas, severely damaged the home and neighboring properties and Marmor was told the house was uninhabitable. Nevertheless, about six weeks later, Marmor snuck back into the damaged house and again accidentally fell asleep with a lit cigarette on a twin mattress on the floor of the basement. The house is now completely destroyed. A few days ago, an SF Airporter shuttle with five people on it hit someone in an accident on 280 North, by the Mariposa exit. The driver originally claimed a homeless woman had wandered in front of the van. Then, when people started noticing that one of his passengers was missing, he revised his story that maybe someone had fallen out of the van when he swerved to avoid a car. Then, when other passengers started giving statements to the police and it became apparent that no one had seen a car in the other lane, people are now concluding maybe the driver fell asleep at the wheel. Today's news: the driver, Melvin Simpson, is O.J. Simpson's older brother. Whaa? Who even knew O.J. Simpson still had relatives in the Bay Area? And the South Bay cops are looking for a white man in his late 20s who's robbed 12 Subways, Quiznos, or Baskin Robbinses between the hours of 7:30 and 9 p.m. in San Jose, Los Gatos, Mountain View, Santa Clara, and Sunnyvale. He always buys something an hour before robbing the place, and is always wearing a black or gray hoodie, gray beanie cap, and black pants. We hope it's a pair of those really big before- pants, like Jared's. ...

Bay Area crime roundup...