Early this morning around 4:40 a.m. a fire broke out in a Squat & Gobble café near the West Portal Muni station. By 6:30 a.m. a fourth alarm was called after the fire spread to the wine shop next door. Activity from the fire crews on the scene also blocked access to the Muni tunnel, disrupting inbound K, M, and L Muni Metro lines.
A bus bridge was set up to get commuters downtown this morning, but the intense blaze forced firefighters to take a defensive stance and contain the fire while waiting for it to drown out. “We pulled all our members out of the building because of concern for their safety," Fire Chief Joanna Hayes-White told KTVU. "We are applying water from the outside in a ‘surround and drown’” One firefighter suffered minor smoke inhalation, but did not need to be hospitalized.
CBS5 has a video report of the fire that was still active around 9 a.m. this morning.
