Those in person will be allowed to speak first then those waiting on the phone line. When your item come up and Public Comment is called. Those in person line and up those on the phone dial star 3. If you are on your phone, remember to turn down your tv and all listening devices you may be using. You may submit written comment to the government and commitey clerk, stefani cabrera sfgov. Org alsous Postal Service at 1 dr. Carlton b. Goodlett place room 244, San Francisco, california, 94102. If you submit comment in write telling be forwarded to the supervisors included as part of the terrible if file. Items are expected to appear on the board of supervisors agenda upon september 19 unless stated. Thank you. Thank you. Call the first item. Item one a hearing on strategies for Army Building fires, prevention and support for victims complrd including Resources Available displace am and the San FranciscoFire Department and Human Service agency to report. Members of the public who wish to provide comment should call the number on the screen. Then the access code. If you have not done so, dial star 3 to be added to the speaker queue. Wait until you have been unmuted then begin your comments. Thank you. Clothes, today im hold thanksgiving hearing i called for on Fire Prevention in the citys response protocol for displaced residents. I want to speak then well hear from presenters. I want to give context. And you know this is a message received often late at night or first thing in the morning i know all of us on this board dread. The residential fire that occurred in our district. And our constituents, once we have astained they are safe they are in the blink of an eye in a position they lost everything. Often near low all possessions or all possessions and are without a home. Unexpected 3. And in need of assistance. Since the start of 2022. There has been 17 fires in district 5. Leaving 200 residents in reason controlled buildings needing immediate housing and shelter. Had we have learn in the my office our office myself and staff physically going to the scene of a fire as we have done in nearly all of these incidents i referenced is crucial. And the reasons as well explore in the hearing today. Is not just to offer comfort and moral support to folks displaced but always because we play an important roll by going and asignificant victims directly. Who i we have hard working staff in various departments that are tasked with fire response, far too many people end up falling through the critics and in the getting the help they need. I think there are real gaps in the fire response. I believe we need to do more to make sure victims experiencing the trauma of losing homes are getting the help that they need. This august there were 2 major fires on the divisidero corridor at 1600 block of mcallister and the second on haight and divisidero. More than a dozen tenants. We saw red cross responded 2 each of saw on scene. And getting Contact Information of victims we were able to connect and help assist more folks than we would have. I misspoke when i said last august was the previous august. We have seen what started as fires in a single unit in the older low rise and mid rise rent controlled buildings spret to engulf the entire structures. Resulting in buildings being entirely uninhabitable and displacing all residents. And the buildings are not inhabitable today. I think it is clear to most involved in this and we will hear from the Fire Department. That had some of the buildings out fitted with sprinklers which are not required currently tlshg is little doubt the fires would have caused less damage and contained an individual room or unit instead of spreading and displacing the building. In march of this year. We had another incident i want to note. We learned of alet night fire at 120 hyde street an sro hotel in the tenderloin. A majority of the 28 residents displaced. Receiving Housing Support from the transgender justice project. And after connect the impacted residents with City Departments we were struck by the lack of coraledination and urgency we a week passing and many residents without stable housing forcing them to use their funds to pay for hotel rooms and step in where housing was not provided. In the context of this my office dealt with 6 different City Departments and agencies to figure out how to place the impacted residents in temporary housing. Countless hours trying to do this. We were able to find more placements after a week of work. And out reach. I think that experience reaffirmed when we have experienced in previous fires and what may be increaseingly the case that the city can and should be doing more to provide a coordinated response for fire victims. I want to issue very clear that my purpose in this hearing is not at all to lay blame on any one department or individual for the fact i believe our citys response here. Is insufficient. In fact to the contrary. My experience has been impressed by the Fire Departments response to the fires. American in which the Fire Department deals with victims on scene. The folks from hsa we will hear from often doing far beyond their Job Description in all hours of the night to support people. The red cross volunteers. I think that this is an area where we want to figure out how to have a better its. And appreciate that a lot of the folks involved have been going above and beyond to try to help people in a situation the system are not able to provide that support. My hope weave have a Solutions Oriented hearing and Work Together to improve the system. Before i turn it over to departments, i want to acknowledge and appreciate the effort. Supervisor chan who just early 30 week announced her focus and attention on sprinkler issues that run parallel to when we will discuss looking at adus and newer construction and fire safety. Looking forward to that and working with you on those efforts. I want to thank dan torres of the sprinkler fitter local 483. Who has been in discussions with us around the latest technology that is available should there be requirements for landlords of the buildings to provide and showing the latest technology and i was he was we went with mr. Torres and others on a tour of building that i had done a major upgrade to add sprinklers. Did this this year and encouraged to learn how the new technologies brought costs down. And also equally importantly eliminated the need that displace residents while doing retrofits. I think in the past has been the barriers to sprinklering the buildings the inconvenience and the cost involved with displacing residents for that retrofit and increaseingly it seems that the new technologies allow that work to be done without displacement. I would like to turn it over to departments. We will and i want to thank the folks speaking who have been working with our office and providing details and answering questions. Thank you. First we will hear from our fire marshall and who will talk data around Fire Prevention and then doris the director of disaster response. At hsa. And then i understand dbi acts deputy and director will be visible if the committee has questions for dbi. With that, welcome. Fire marshall. Good morning. Supervisor preston and stefani and chan. Thank you for inviting mow it speak on the strategies for Fire Prevention in residential blgdzs. After occurrence residents displaced by fire many in the Mission District. Many remember, 2016 fires in large buildings result in the damage are loss of housing and loss of life. Those concentrated fires in one neighborhood highlighted the need to examine the fire Safety Policies in residential buildings. Supervisors question in 2015 policy analysis report of impact on the Sprinkler Systems prepared by budget and analyst office. They examined 3 key points the facts on residential buildings of sprinklers. Break down of buildings. Types of buildings and kausz of fires the costs of retrofitting them with new systems and the best practice for landlords to install the system. This report is online read by all. I like to highlight a few points discussed went report and look what the Fire Department and board of supervisors has accomplished since then. First, provide data. Some is skewed because with displaced residents there is no one location where the information is kept. When we queue or query the information we go through computer aid dispatch reports and fire reports to get the information. The numbers that supervisor preston you mentioned earlier, have you more data then and there we have. So, you may seat numbers may be off. But look at the trends the last 13 years, you see in 2016 it stated 252, 2 alarm or greater residential fires tr 2004 to 16. After that date from upon 2073 to 232 benefit upon were sdoed have 115 for by the end of the year over 7 year period that is reduction of 15 . We can so we have a number of greater alarms. Two or more the no. One alarm with the Fire Department working fires decreased. Can i just one question on the data and thank you for points out on and should make clear the numbers i cited there are not official Fire Department numbers we just through that through the alert system of the city get notified and when a fire when resolved there is a number there of people bis displaced my staff took those. Those other number of displacements. You say that is none an official number. The other thing i want to point out the reason im cutting in in the middle is because i think this applies to most of the slides andmented it clarify. Last year in all the slides, shows like the huge drop. I think that is because we are not completed with the year. 4 months to go. I want to be clear that last year these are not trends lines not like a huge drop off you mentioned we may be on track. Exactly we are on track it a better year. 2022 was a bad year. The last each one shows the down on the chart. It is the as of august. Half a year. Correct. Thank you. So, this slide show this is in 2022 there was 25 increase in initial fires. This is similar to 2016, when fires increased 12 . This spike was noticeable each year, the numbers were decreasing. You see still, building fires in a downward trend minus the one spike in 2022. Good news is over the last 13 years the reduction of fires meant the initial residential fires decreased mean that fewer am people are displaced. You see we have 1 and 2 family dwellings. Multifamily on the bottom and a total of all different fires happening. Again. 2023 is incomplete year and may not show that decrease as shown. Further we see 90 occur in build pregnants classified low rise the highest floor less than 75 feet boost street. 78 story buildings and they have less occupants. We look to occupancies that had many fires and displaced residents we see in sros the fires remained low since the San Francisco fire code requirement of retroactively installing sprinklers. It shows with more fires the number of importance displaced increase and takes one good fire to put 25 and 50 residents out of their home. We see had high rise building fires steady at 23 year displacementings are low and also that, too the one fire in the high rise. 440 dave us displace 50 or more residents. My Research Also highlighted building fires decreased, outside fires of all types trash, grass and encampment fires continued to increase greatly. The city on track for 23 to exceed prepandemic numbers more than 21 2 times than in 2019. Unfortunately, working with fire investigation, this is some of the fires have been cause for some of our greatest fires out there the encampment fires next to a building. Some believe that more fires are happening in the neighborhood we plotted the building fires on a map and they are occurring throughout the city evenly. Near tenderloin, mission and bayview neighborhoodses. This has been a trend over the years. You see, through the years, they are spread out. Put them together the last 6 years you see in the tenderloin and mission and bayview have a higher concentration of fires. The Fire Department suspect there to put out a fire but the Fire Prevention custodian of recordses. Completing atesting to the residents post fire situation with the displacement form you see. Protect against injury and loss life inspect event of a fire. Sprinkler system are in the area where a fire was located. Specific locations and existing apartment buildings. Hotel with more than 20 rooms. When floors addon top or down in the basementful increase safety of the board could expand requirements to regard wire sprinkler detecters in apartment buildings they are required hard wire Smoke Detector in new are construction. Current fire alarm upgrade requirement that many of you heard of and attempt to comply watch due to the pandemic the date was extended july first of this year gave ordinance senors to complete the work. Early notification of fire saves lives it does in the help people being displaced. Item 2 of the report asked to require installation of sprinklers in existing apartment buildings target high risk building repeat failure to abate fire safety violation this is brought a board fire code allowing the fire marshall to require ordinance fire code violators to upgrade the life Safety System based on the risk. Fire alarm and or sprinklers. To date the marshalling office not required an owner to install because of consistent violations on the property. Residential requirements are generally governed by building and fire code enacted at time of building construction. However, ordinances amended the building, fire and housing code required it in types. Buildings. And when a building changes use. Tourist hotels. All public areas required to have sprinklers. Basement and garbage chutes. Basement that contains 1800 square feet. Garbage chutes in buildings. Except when than i notoriety dwelling unit. Laundry chutes and compartments and new residential buildings. Required to have Sprinkler System. Buildings 3 or more units meet standards and dwellings then b standards. The codes contain the following these are positive things. In high rise buildings passed in 1993 all existing high rise buildings. They were prejuly first, 1975. Before this they were not required to have sprinklers since in 1975 all high rise buildings constructed have sprinklers. Given 12 year period by february 15 to install them this included only towerist hotels. Mixeded use occupancy buildings. Apartments and condos and residential high rise were not required to install them that has changed as of january first of this year. The 2022 fire code required ordinance of the 125 plus residential properties. Sro hotel in 2001. Every Residential Hotel 20 or more required to maintain a Sprinkler System we see the results of that. San francisco requirements to install conform and comparable to other cities. Policy to require installation in existing buildings define the buildings and establish priorities for sprinkler installation. Krrgdz to expand requirements to install sprinklers in existing apartment buildings should include more specific information regarding the cause of the dpiers is how Safety Systems and construction types perform so that expanded requirements target the highest risk buildings. Fire prevention and investigation assist in developing the criteria for assessing fire risk and identifying buildings that pose the highest safety risk. Including those this have a repeated failure and prioritize for retroactive requirements. Supervisor peskin worked closely with the Fire Department. And with you around upon the expanded requirements the one you described on the high rise and Retroactive Application the next decade or so. Thank you for your work and thank you president supervisor peskin as well. Unless we have questions we may have some after i want to go through our presenters first. So lets hear next from doris. Director sdaefrt preparedness and response hsa. Welcome. Good morning can thank you for having me to talk a bit about how the city coordinates response and provides support service for Households Displaced from fires. I wanted start a bit as we started about with how we coordinate our response in San Francisco. It is a multiagency coordination and we focus on bring resources together from various departments. And also rapidly stabilizing the households that have been displaced. Our focus is to be on and provide assistance and ensure that households have support to be able to move in recovery. The forming departments that work through this coordinated sponse are the San FranciscoHuman Service agency. I report. The San FranciscoFire Department. The d. Emergency management and american red cross. The Human Service agency provides a variety of Stabilization Services. Both immediate and short term. We provide a Housing Subsidy Program and provide hotel and support to house holds that require extended hoteling as they try to determine next steps. Fire department is lead on scene. They determine if there is a possibility of displaced households and initial the response. By activating the red cross and notifying the d. Emergency management. The d. Emergency management is really o