S.F. investigators can’t determine cause of Hayes Valley fire
Nine months after flames consumed a building under construction in San Francisco’s Hayes Valley, investigators have concluded they cannot determine whether the fastmoving fire was an accident or arson, according to an incident report reviewed by the Chronicle.
The report was produced following a public records request.
Fourteen condominium units were fire erupted before dawn on Aug. 1. It took 140 firefighters more than five hours to extinguish the blaze.
Flames eventually overtook the “entire construction site” and spread to nearly a dozen adjacent residences, San Francisco Fire Department investigator Edward Labrado wrote in the report.
While investigators were unable to discover the source, Labrado noted that “previous incidents at 300 Octavia (Blvd.) involved incidents relating to homeless activity.”
Investigators ruled out some potential causes, like a lightning strike, but were otherwise unable to determine whether the fire was an act of arson, San Francisco Fire Department spokesperson Mariano Elías said in an interview. Arson is among the most difficult causes to prove because all the evidence is burned, Elías said.
“We want to find the answers, but they are not always able to be found,” Elías said.
Months before the fire, a Hayes Valley neighborhood group wrote a letter to Mayor London Breed and other leaders, imploring them to intervene in what they described as “dangerous conditions” on Octavia Boulevard. Some said they observed people tapping into power from utility poles near the scaffolding of the building that later burned.
The letter followed an uptick in fires at residential and commercial buildings, which reached a 10year high in 2022.