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A two-alarm fire broke out on Saturday morning in an empty Mission District apartment building that had already burned in April this year, then displacing some dozen people. No one was displaced in Saturday’s fire, but the building was further damaged.
At 9:35 a.m., firefighters responded to a fire call at a three-story building at 143–147 San Jose Ave. on the corner of 24th Street and San Jose Avenue, said Battalion Chief Jose Velo.
“When we arrived we could see smoke coming out of the lower unit of the building,” Velo said. Firefighters began an “aggressive attack” to put out the fire, he said, and took caution entering the building because of previous damage to the building in the April fire.
Shortly after firefighters arrived, the fire moved from the ground-floor to the top of the building, Velo said.
“The fire extended from the side of the building to the second and third floors,” he said, adding that firefighting efforts prevented the fire from extending to surrounding buildings. Though the fire was under investigation and the cause unknown, Velo said it seems to have started in the back of the ground-floor unit.
Smoke coming from building on 24th and San Jose that burned a few months ago: https://t.co/5LHuha6y7d #sf #mission pic.twitter.com/H272vdR99d
— Mission Local (@MLNow) August 6, 2016
Velo said the landlord of the building had reported broken locks a few days before, and a neighbor said he had heard voices in the empty building in the last few weeks.
“I thought maybe they had let people back in,” said Joseph Loyd, who lives next door to the fire building at 131–141 San Jose Ave. “I heard some noises, I heard voices.”
The building was empty but undergoing some repairs, according to other neighbors.
Julissa Hernandez, who lived on the ground-floor unit of the burned building before she was displaced three months ago, said the second fire would mean even more time before she could move back into her rent-controlled unit.
She said her landlord told her repairs were just starting when the fire struck.
“He said, ‘They emptied the place and they’re gutting it, but you know what this means: more time, more time,’” she said. Hernandez said her landlord had told her to expect an 8–12 month wait before being allowed back into the building after April’s fire, but now doesn’t know how long it’ll be before she can return.
She’s been living with her mother, daughter, and husband in her mother’s place down the street and said it’s been “horrific” living in cramped quarters. She and her husband heard the sirens on Saturday morning, and when she heard it was her old unit she was in disbelief.
“I said, ‘You got to be kidding me.’ I thought it was a joke,” she said. Other tenants have been living elsewhere at double the rent, she said, and were anxious to return to their rent-controlled units. Hernandez said she was worried that this second fire would make the building impossible to repair, and that she would lose her right to return to her old unit if it were demolished.
Anthony Paredas, who lives next door to the burned building at 141 San Jose Ave., said he went outside for a smoke break in an alleyway behind his building when he heard shouting coming from workers at Arizmendi bakery.
“I came out to smoke a cigarette and I’m like ‘What’s going on?’” he said. “[The Arizmendi workers] were banging pots and pans like, ‘Get out of the building!’”
When he turned back to his building, he said he saw smoke coming from his back door.
Paredas then went back inside to warn his neighbors, knocking on doors to evacuate the building. When he went out the front door onto San Jose Avenue, he saw smoke coming from the top floor of the building next door.
His roommate, Loyd, had just left to get coffee when the fire started. Paredas called him to tell him that the building next door had gone up in flames for the second time.
“I went to go get coffee at Philz and by the time I came back it had started,” Loyd said. “You could see [smoke] billowing out of the back and then I came around front [on San Jose Avenue] and it was also coming out the front.”
The only damage to 131–141 San Jose Ave., the next door building, were holes made in the roof by firefighters ensuring that the fire hadn’t extended into the building, Battalion Chief Velo said. Residents of the three-story, six-unit building were evacuated during the fire but would be allowed back in shortly.
“They made holes in our ceiling, but there was no [other] damage,” said Art Mostofi, who lives in the top unit of the next door building. “We’re the ones who keep getting damaged.”
The fire was the second in a 12-hour period in the Mission District. On Friday night at 10 p.m., a one-alarm fire broke out at the Lolinda steakhouse on 21st and Mission streets, but was quickly extinguished by firefighters. The restaurant was closed on Saturday morning.
Joe was born in Sweden, where half of his family received asylum after fleeing Pinochet, and then spent his early childhood in Chile; he moved to Oakland when he was eight. He attended Stanford University for political science and worked at Mission Local as a reporter after graduating. He then spent time at YIMBY Action and as a partner for the strategic communications firm The Worker Agency. He rejoined Mission Local as an editor in 2023. You can reach him on Signal @jrivanob.99.
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