potrero view
Photograph by Michael Accomazzo

Photograph by Michael Accomazzo

Station 37.

June 2009

All in a Day’s Work: Potrero Hill’s Firehouse 37

By Deia de Brito

The firefighters at Station 37, at the top of Potrero Hill, typically get upwards of five calls during a given 24-hour period, usually in the middle of the night.  Between shopping and cooking, testing water pressure, conducting fire drills at neighborhood schools, and listening to a constant stream of dispatches, the possibility of an alarm always hangs in the air.  Similar to war, firefighters live in a state of suspenseful near-boredom, occasionally interrupted by a rip of potentially dangerous excitement, an adrenaline rush.

The only City department guaranteed to show up when you dial 911 – police response depends on the nature of the request – the San Francisco Fire Department is required to respond to a call within five minutes, whether for a broken nail, a bad dream, asthma attack or a fire.  About once a month, the firefighters at Station 37 get a real good – or real bad – fire.

“We are a standing army.  You want your army prepared to be able to do whatever it’s tasked to do at its max. We can’t schedule a fire,” said Kevin Garry, the son of Irish immigrants whose father was also a firefighter.  Garry, Station 37’s driver, grew up on Potrero Hill and knows the streets well.  “My dad was a fireman and I saw how happy those guys were going to work everyday.  I thought about sitting in a cubicle designing plumbing diagrams…” said Garry, adding that many years ago, being a cop or a firefighter – considered undesirable employment at the time – were among the only jobs recent immigrants could get.  Today, the profession runs in the family.  Station 37’s Lieutenant Leo Tingin’s wife is a San Francisco firefighter and Andrew Birkhoff’s sons will soon take the firefighting exam.

Firehouse 37 consists of three stories, and is equipped with two work-out rooms and a dorm room with a dry sauna. Typically, a day at the station begins at 8:30 a.m. with breakfast and the shift’s assignments.  Tingin, a firefighter since 1994, makes sure that there are enough firefighters – at least four – in the firehouse. On this day in April there was a vacancy.  Andrew Birkhoff, a paramedic firefighter from station 7 on 19th and Folsom streets, was tasked to Potrero Hill to fill in as the hose man, responsible for carrying the hose into a smoke-filled building and making sure it doesn’t kink up along the way.  Birkhoff had already worked an overnight shift, but was happy for the overtime.

A firefighter’s normal workweek lasts 48 hours or more.  Part of the quid pro quo of working overtime is sharing the wealth by contributing to the house fund, a long-time ritual among firefighters. Some household items, such as stoves and refrigerators, are supplied by the City, but firefighters pay for their own food, pots, pans, workout machines and maintenance, and barbeques, among other things.

Before the driver starts the engine and heads out into the streets, the four firefighters get busy sweeping and doing maintenance, mostly associated with the fire truck.  Tingin sounds a bell ten minutes before starting the big red engine.  When the time comes, everyone puts on their gear and gets in. The first task for this day is a fire drill – a monthly Fire Department requirement – at Daniel Webster Elementary School.

After the drill the firefighters proceed to check-out Esprit Park, a recently constructed condominium complex located in Dogpatch.  The development is so new that only around one-third of its 142 units are occupied.  Station 37’s job is to make sure that the building has proper exits and elevators, and sufficient water outlets.  The men immediately notice a relic from the past; an old fire safety door on the historic seismically retrofitted building, once designed to melt and slam shut in case of a fire, preventing flames from spreading.   “Hopefully it’s decorative,” said Birkhoff.  “These things are friggin’ dangerous because you’re in there fighting a fire and suddenly your exit gets closed. Boom!”

San Francisco firefighters face particular challenges.  In high density cities with little or no space between buildings, fire spreads quickly and can easily take out a whole block. The City’s firefighters, unlike many rural or smaller city firefighters, must be especially aggressive in the way they attack fires, fighting the flames from inside buildings.  Fire trucks are akin to a giant tool box on wheels.  They can be used to scale buildings, and to open them up, letting the smoke out so firefighters can see what’s going on inside.

“Other departments will stand outside and throw water on the building and won’t even go in. They’ll let that house go. It’s a sacrifice and nobody gets hurt,” said Garry. In historic San Francisco, Birkhoff explained, insulation was once more expensive than fuel, so people just burned coal. As a result fire often has free reign to move up and down between the air space in un-insulated walls.

San Francisco’s need for aggressive attack creates a higher health and safety risk to the City’s firefighters.  On average, 180 U.S. firefighters die each year, explained Birkhoff, who has been a firefighter and paramedic for a decade and a half, and who volunteers at the Burning Man festival every year.  On this morning, his girlfriend sent him a text message telling him to have a safe shift and look after himself. It’s been two months since Birkhoff suffered third and second degree burns on his legs from a fire that spread under a Felton Street building’s floorboards and above its ceiling.   “There aren’t as many fires as there used to be but they’re far worse than they used to be. The types of materials that are in buildings burn hotter, burn faster, and move faster,” said Birkhoff. “The reality is, I’ve seen two fires I didn’t think I was going to get out of.”

In addition to burns, firefighters deal with sudden and prolonged exposure to carbon and other toxic chemicals.  According to Birkhoff, firefighters often die of heart disease in their sixties.  Today a greater number of toxics may contribute to a slew of rare cancers among firefighters.  “Since I’ve been here, there have been a dozen firefighters who have come up with weird cancers. One was a tri-athlete, the picture of health, verging on vegan,” said Birkhoff. “He came down with kidney cancer, which is highly rare.”

Over the last decade changes have been made to reduce health risks among firefighters. Until about twelve years ago, drivers would start up engines and trucks in their firehouses, filling the room with diesel smoke. Today, a tube connects from the engine’s tailpipe to the ceiling, releasing diesel emissions into the outside air.  Still, particulates line the firehouse’s surfaces.  In 2007, the San Francisco Fire Department switched some of its vehicles to biodiesel, but the fuel slowed the engines down when going uphill, said Tingin.

The Station 37 firefighters are growing a garden on their roof, which has 360 degree City views.  Fresh produce will cut costs, provide for a healthier diet, and is sustainable, said Garry.  Carrots and greens are sprouting, with zucchini on its way.   Firefighters cook their homemade meals on a rotating basis, another firehouse tradition. That means a trip to the Safeway at the Potrero Center, where almost every worker seems to know them by name. “Ordering food is frowned upon. It’s a bonding thing, a camaraderie thing, it’s about sharing,” said Garry, the cook on a recent shift. Jokes fly across the kitchen during meal prep.  Victor Lubet’s – who worked as a carpenter until he became a firefighter ten years ago at the age of forty – decision to make tater tots –normally a breakfast food – for lunch the other day is the subject of repetitive but playful mockery. “They get really picky like that. I’m thinking: I want to serve them tater tots again,” said Lubet. “It’s the little things that count.”

Firehouse meals – a recent lunch consisting of a delicious egg salad sandwich, leftover lamb spaghetti, and fresh pineapple salad – take time and planning. In larger firehouses, like Birkhoff’s station 7, a crew of 17 enables each firefighter to cook roughly every six weeks.   “There is a perception that we’re sitting around a lot. But even though we’re all chill right now, in a moment’s notice we could be crawling down a darkened hallway looking for someone,” said Birkhoff.

In a recent fire Birkhoff helped fight, panic set in when additional fighters entered the building just when it was time to retreat. Temperatures were so high that the smoke was close to combusting.  In large fires, communication is nearly impossible through air masks that muffle sound and smoke that blocks vision. At that point, said Birkhoff, you just pull your hood over your head as far as you can, pull your arms over your face, and make sure the fire doesn’t get trapped under your fire-resistant clothes.

“Most fires are started because of poor maintenance; candles, smoking in bed, leaving the stove on. Without smoke detectors, most people die. Carbon monoxide has no taste or odor to it. It gradually fills the room. One of the first things that happens is lethargy,” said Birkhoff.  “It’s a bad time when you put a hose line to the ceiling and it gets hotter. You’re cooking yourself, boiling yourself,” said Garry.

Despite the reputation that firefighters primarily fight fires, the majority of calls are for medical issues.   “We will see more shit in one week than anyone we’ll see in their whole lifetime,” said Birkhoff over the lunch table. “Each of us has seen more dead bodies than we should. Have you seen someone decapitated before? I’ve seen three that stick in my mind. I picked up a motorcycle helmet and the guy’s face had the uh-oh face on.”   

“In between all the shootings, stabbings, car accidents, burning has got to be the worst way to go,” said Tingin.   “I’ve been to two or three shootings in the projects where you’re there and they’re still shooting. They’ll come up to you and say I shot that guy, don’t help him. And we say we’re just here doing our job,” said Garry. He also remembers a man who was trying to steal live copper wire by the Ramp on Third Street. When firefighters arrived on the scene, they found pieces of hand everywhere. The man had taken off running with no hands.

He recalls a woman who was driving and tried to release a mosquito from her car, only to fall out of the car and get run over by her own moving vehicle. She lived.  There was a man who was backing up a rental car with his door open. When he fell out of the car, he was run over. He died.  There are old people who die peacefully, surrounded by loved ones. And there are old ladies who live in hovels with all of their belongings piled to the ceilings, without plumbing, water, or electricity, eating cat food.

“One call I’ll never forget was for a young girl, she was probably twelve. She had something simple that was wrong with her, like an earache. And somehow it got more complicated and she saw the doctor and the doctor told her to take some simple medications. Then it just spiraled out of control. She ended up having a seizure. That’s when we arrived on scene. And she actually died. That was a tough one,” remembered Lubet.

“One thing I’ve learned in the Fire Department is that reality is far more descriptive and unbelievable than movies or fiction,” said Tingin, who spent several weeks fighting massive northern California forest fires two years ago. “Just the condition that some people live in; you’re like there’s no way I could have thought of that one. It happened but there’s no way in my mind I could picture that happening without actually seeing it.”

Due to the City’s budget problems, this year they’ll be no Fire Academy graduates.  Cuts could also decrease the number of new trucks, as well as the quantity of annual firehouse inspections.   “With budget cuts and health care the way it is, we are the bottom of the barrel. We catch everybody that falls through the cracks,” said Birkhoff. “A lot of times we go on calls that are non-emergent, but they don’t have any other options; they don’t have a clinic, a private doctor, or they don’t have insurance, so the medical conditions don’t get taken care of. So while those situations are rising, our staffing is not matching that greater demand.”

The station 37 firefighters wrap up their workday with a workout and dinner.  But before that, budget concerns prompt them to pick up a handful of flyers to distribute around the neighborhood. The Save Our Firehouses Campaign, organized by the firefighters’ union – Local 798 – began a door hanger drop in April to let people know of the dangers of shutting firehouses.  Fortunately, according to the firefighters at 37, their firehouse probably won’t close down.  It’s too centrally located.

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