Letters to the editor: The lack of fire safety on the West Side of town

To the editor:

This is testimony I submitted to the Land Use and Transportation Committee on Mayor Daniel Lurie’s new zoning plan:

I am here to tell you about a serious public safety concern that I and my neighbors have that needs your immediate attention.

I am talking about the fact that the city’s high pressure Emergency Firefighting Water System does not extend much into the city’s westside and southern neighborhoods. Without this vital life-saving infrastructure in place, the westside, in particular, with its hundreds of blocks of wood-frame buildings, will likely succumb to firestorms of unimaginable proportions immediately following the next great earthquake.

My particular neighborhood is at great risk due to the lack of this vital infrastructure. I am reminded practically every day of the fact of the absence of the city’s fire protection infrastructure.  Right outside my living room window is a fire hydrant with a white cap.  This piece of infrastructure will be useless in suppressing the conflagration expected after gas mains burst and the westside neighborhoods are a blaze as that type of fire hydrant isn’t “hardened.”

The traditional Yimby reply to the partial Emergency Firefighting Water System infrastructure build-out is that those services will be funded by new property taxes from upzoning, and thus must follow, not precede, the residents. My issue is different. Residents, like me, are already living in the city’s westside neighborhoods without the benefit of the fire protection offered by EFWS. That means only one thing: The proper build out of the EFWS must be complete and in place now if any benefit is to be realized when it is needed during “The Big One.” Partial service won’t suffice and cisterns and the Water Tender System are inadequate as resources.

First things first. The infrastructure needed for a functioning Emergency Firefighting Water System must be in place before the mayor’s Family Zoning Plan can be put in place. Fire protection infrastructure designed to protect the westside neighborhoods must absolutely precede any infrastructure that increases height limits and density in our neighborhoods. Current and future westside neighborhood residents deserve parity by means of constructing an emergency firefighting water system with adequate water pressure that the rest of the city currently enjoys.

As you know, the Earthquake Safety and Emergency Response bonds in 2010, 2014, and 2020 did not provide adequate public fire safety services for ALL residents of the city. As a result, there is a serious public safety issue that unfairly burdens westside neighborhood residents which requires immediate remedial action by the Board of Supervisors.  The current inadequacy of Emergency Firefighting Water System poses a major threat to the western neighborhood residents. 

The Family Zoning Plan cannot in good conscience be considered seriously or implemented while westside neighborhoods residents are stuck with this woefully inadequate fire protection infrastructure.  Vulnerable city residents, like seniors and the disabled, would be the first to perish in a firestorm of the city’s making.

It’s time to complete the Emergency Firefighting Water System infrastructure work in order to benefit ALL city residents by passing an additional bond measure that will ensure that westside neighborhood residents will have the proper fire protection infrastructure after an earthquake.