Two-alarm residential fire in the Mission displaces 22, draws huge crowd from nearby restaurants

At approximately 7 p.m. on Friday evening, the San Francisco Fire Department responded to a significant fire in an apartment building in the Mission.

Crowds quickly gathered on the 3000 block of 20th Street between Florida and Alabama streets to watch. The buildings in question are near a cluster of restaurants—including Penny Roma, True Laurel and Farmhouse Thai—and dozens of people huddled in a parklet as some 75 firefighters from several companies fought to extinguish the blaze. Numerous onlookers had beers in their hands.

Around 7:30 p.m., firefighters successfully climbed to the roof—one climbing the ladder while carrying a second ladder—and began to douse the flames. According to the San Francisco Fire Department, the blaze was a two-alarm fire. Both 3017 and 3021 20th St. have been red-tagged, and the cause is under investigation.

SFFD later tweeted that no one was injured, but 22 people had been displaced, and the fire was under investigation.

The Standard spoke briefly with an older, monolingual Spanish-speaking couple. Seated at an outdoor table from a nearby restaurant, they said they were inhabitants of the building. They believed the fire began on the second or third floor, possibly in a neighbor’s kitchen in the back, and they were unharmed.