Sunset Profile: The Future of Firefighting on the Westside
Most of San Francisco burned to the ground in 1906 after the Great Earthquake. That’s why we built an extensive high pressure water system to fight massive fires — but only on the eastside of town. We didn’t cover the westside because not many people lived there. It was mostly sand dunes. Even as we filled the Sunset with homes in the 1930s to 1950s, we never installed a high pressure water system on the westside.
This makes Sunset residents nervous, knowing the geological chances of another “Big One” in the not too distant future. A 2019 civil grand jury report said “city leaders have known about this deficiency for decades” and “should make the expansion of emergency firefighting protections to all San Franciscans a matter of high priority before it is too late.”
An underground high pressure water system for the westside will cost billions of dollars and take many years. Meanwhile, we need protection.
Fire Chief Jeanine Nicholson has the solution: a portable water system that can pull water from Lake Merced and send it at high pressure to multiple locations anywhere in the Sunset. The high-powered pump technology is called a hose tender. It can deliver water from Lake Merced more than two miles in any direction, which covers the area west of 19th Avenue without access to a high pressure system.
The Sunset is getting its first hose tender truck with more on the way.
Fire Chief Jeanine Nicholson at water intake of the hose tender.
Video produced and edited by volunteer Phil Reiff. We encourage volunteers with media experience, retired journalists, and student journalists in high school and college to volunteer as video producers and writers for Supervisor Engardio’s newsletter. Interested? Apply here. Do you know a story you would like to see featured in the newsletter? Tell us about it here.