When the PG&E electrical fire broke out at the corner of Polk and O’Farrell Streets, Friday morning, June 6, I was in a corner apartment directly above the intersection. The power went out and I looked out the window to see if others had lost power too. There was black smoke coming out of a manhole cover in the middle of the intersection.
Over the next several hours, as the fire burned and died down three separate times, I was in a perfect spot to watch and photograph what was happening. The smoke was acrid, the PG&E supervisor on the ground kept yelling at me to close the window when I opened it to take pictures, and it got a bit dicey when the fireball coming out of Manhole 2581 was burning some thirty feet high, and police megaphones were blaring “This is an emergency; everyone clear the area” without specifying whether the building I was in was being evacuated or not. But the chance to take some special photographs made it all worthwhile.
A few of those photographs are below.
[The fire begins… and grows. A truck with carbon dioxide… pumps 7500 pounds of gas into the hole. The fire subsides… but when firemen uncover the manhole… the fire and smoke return. The fire is allowed to burn down again. Workmen examine burning embers underground… until there’s an explosion inside the hole. Smoke returns, thicker than ever. a fireball rises… burning as much as 30 feet high. The fire subsides for the last time.]
San Francisco Chronicle, June 10, 2009
Copyright © 2009 David Steinberg
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