A troubled, empty Potrero Hill apartment complex known for attracting squatters was hit by a trash fire Sunday afternoon, and one person has been detained, apparently on suspicion of setting the blaze.
The San Francisco Fire Department was called in to put out a large trash fire in Potrero Hill on Sunday afternoon, according to the Chronicle, reportedly on Missouri Street next to the Potrero Hill Recreation Center. The building that had the fire is described as being “abandoned,” indicating the fire was at a low-income housing complex that has been closed for remodeling for quite some time, and has been known for attracting squatters.
The blaze was reported to the SF Fire Department at approximately 1:20 pm Sunday afternoon by several people in the neighborhood calling 911, and was extinguished in about 10 minutes after firefighters arrived. There were no injuries reported.
The Chronicle reports that one person was taken into custody after the blaze, but there is no further information on who the individual is, or what the charges involved were. But the Chron also adds that according to one eyewitness, “someone was throwing items out of a window onto the pile of trash.”
The building where the fire occurred had “previously suffered damage in a fire,” per the Chronicle. The Missouri Street location pinpoints this as the Potrero Hill Terrace-Annex, which is in the process of being demolished for new housing. But the complex has been a magnet for squatters for quite some time.
While the SF Fire Department did not specify the address of this particular building, it’s described as a two-story building. It appears to be adjacent to a three-story Potrero Hill Terrace-Annex building that is also also supposed to be empty for demolition and remodeling — and Mission Local reports that building also had a fire in September, plus another fire in January 2023 that killed one man who was squatting there.
Related: Potrero Hill Apartment Fire Leaves One Dead, Three Rescued [SFist]
Image: SF Fire Department
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