Debris sits outside of Maurice’s Corner Liquor at 24th and Treat streets, which burned on March 11, 2015. The fire resulted in the deaths of two of the building’s residents. Photo Bridgid Skiba

 

Three major fires have ravaged the Mission District since last September, causing three deaths and displacing dozens of people and businesses.

The latest fire, at the corner of 24th Street and Treat Avenue, killed 38-year-old Mohamed Shaibi and his 13-year-old daughter, Amal Shaibi, and sent the three other members of their family to the hospital.

The two-alarm fire broke out around 4:30 a.m. on March 11 in a second-story home above Maurice’s Corner Liquor, which the family owned.

The cause of the fire is still under investigation, said San Francisco Fire Department spokeswoman Mindy Talmadge. Investigators are interviewing witnesses, and while it is still not known if building smoke detectors were working, they definitely weren’t audible.

When the firefighters arrived at the scene, they saw heavy black smoke coming from a window, and a person trying to escape said Mark Gonzales, SFFD deputy chief of operations.

That person was Shaibi’s 17-year-old son. The youth passed his unconscious 6-year-old brother out of the window to the firefighters, who revived the boy on the street. The older brother was then brought down and given CPR as well.

A second unit arrived on the scene, rushing up the stairs leading to the front door, to find Mohamed’s daughter collapsed in the doorway. She too was brought outside and given CPR.

Notes and flowers remembering the residents who recently died in a fire that burned the corner store at 24th and Treat the morning of March 11. Photo Mabel Jiménez

Firefighters went up the stairs, passing underneath the fire, and found the mother and father in the hallway. They couldn’t go back through the front door, which was now blocked by the fire, so they left from the back of the house.

Firefighters also found two people sleeping in the family-owned liquor store, which had a padlock securing the gate from the outside.

It appeared that they were sleeping there with permission from the owner and were aware of being locked inside, said John Darmanin, SFFD captain of arson task force.

Mohamed and Amal and the 6-year-old boy were rushed to San Francisco General Hospital in critical condition. The boy recovered and was transferred to St. Francis Memorial Hospital’s burn unit, where his mother and older brother were.

Mohamed Shaibi was pronounced dead March 14 from injuries related to smoke inhalation and Amal died four days later from the same causes.

The mother and the two boys have been released and are recovering, Talmadge said.

Fire ‘conspiracies’ unfounded
The escalation of fires in the Mission has caused many people to worry. Some have developed conspiracy theories, others are asking for answers.

District 9 Supervisor David Campos called a meeting March 19 to address the issue.

Attending the meeting were members of the SFFD and the Department of Building Inspection, as well as many concerned community members.

“I am forever grateful to the men and women of the San Francisco Fire Department, who, with bravery, are putting their lives on the line,” Campos said. “But for [their] incredible work we would have had many more deaths in these fires.”

Darmanin addressed the possibility that the fires were suspicious in nature with skepticism.

“We don’t let any bias get in the way of the investigation,” he said.

The building at 23th and Mission streets was damaged to the point that the cause of the September fire could not be determined as intentional or accidental.

The San Francisco Fire Department presents a check to the American Red Cross Bay Area Chapter to support the home preparedness campaign on Tuesday, March 17, at San Francisco Fire Station 7. Photo Angelika Ekeke

The cause of fire at 22nd and Mission streets, which occurred on Jan. 28, is still under investigation, but Darmanin said, investigators are “certain that suspicious nature does not exist,” as there is evidence the cause was electrical.

While the recent fires in the Mission have alarmed many, Darmanin presented statistics showing how fires in the city have decreased annually since 2004.

In the Mission, since 2008, there’s been a significant drop, with an average of 34 fires per year from 2004-2008, to an average of 23 per year for 2009-2014.

New policies to address at risk buildings
After seeing a “cluster of fires occurring in the Mission,” the Department of Building Inspection has instituted a new program to identify at-risk buildings along the Mission Street corridor said Rosemary Bosque, the department’s chief housing inspector.

They have competed about 35 inspections so far, and have found not only fire safety issues, but some life hazard situations.

“In one particular instance—one building on Mission Street—the gate area to a roof access, where there were fire escapes, was chained and padlocked,” Bosque said.

Other situations like that, she said, were referred to City Attorney Dennis Herrera.

“In any kind of emergency, individuals need to be able to get out of these buildings,” Bosque said.

Campos said legislation to address the problem was already being drafted by the city attorney and another meeting would later be held to discuss it. He anticipated some things the legislation could do to prevent tragedies in the future, including:

  • Allow housing inspectors to cite building owners when the fire alarm system is out of date
  • Post signs inside of buildings informing the residents about the possibility of filing anonymous complaints
  • Expand the scope of the fire investigation beyond the cause and origin of the fire (including violations of safety codes)

Six days after the 24th Street and Treat Avenue fire, the San Francisco Firefighters, Local 798, held a press conference outside the charred building, to present a $5,000 check in support of the American Red Cross Home Fire Preparedness campaign.

“While a smoke detector won’t prevent a fire, it will give the resident of the home an adequate head start to get out of the fire, out of the smoke, and save lives,” said Tom O’Connor, president of Local 798. “And if the landlord is not going to do it, we’ll do it ourselves.”

The national campaign involves having volunteers going door to door to install alarms, change batteries, and work with families to create home fire escape plans, said Mark Cloutier, regional CEO of the American Red Cross Bay Area Chapter.

“Even if it saves just one life, this is worth it,” Campos said. “The main thing about fires, the best thing you can do is to prevent them.”