Name: Fisherman’s Wharf fire a ‘disaster’ that will devastate San Francisco’s seafood industry
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Fisherman’s Wharf fire a ‘disaster’ that will devastate San Francisco’s seafood industry

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This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigateSarah Bates could still see debris smoldering on Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco on Tuesday, nearly 72 hours after sent flames higher than 100 feet and destroyed a processing and storage warehouse at the waterfront property.Bates, who fishes out of San Francisco, is one of dozens of local fishers who had equipment in the building at the time of Saturday’s inferno. And like the others, everything she had was destroyed.The storage facility on Pier 45 had 30 tenants, including many who allowed other fishers to store gear in their designated spaces. Altogether, the equipment lost in the fire was worth millions, according to several local fishers. But the loss of countless crab pots and ropes could have even bigger consequences on a local industry that delivers two-thirds of San Francisco’s fresh seafood.While answers vary on the fire’s financial toll, many said one thing is certain: Local fishers are going to suffer during the upcoming crab season.“This is the biggest disaster the San Francisco fishing fleet has ever seen,” Bates said.The fire is just the latest hurdle for a Dungeness crab industry that has been hard-hit financially over the past few years, including a recent delay in the start of the 2019-20 season.The timing meant fishers missed the lucrative opportunity to sell crabs to locals for Thanksgiving. In a good year, the Dungeness crab industry can generate over $95 million, but because of seasons that were shortened due to whale entanglements and domoic acid, a neurotoxin poisonous to humans, the industry lost millions.“When people are going to be buying crab next season, the odds are high that it’s not going to be coming from a San Francisco boat,” Bates said. “We’ve had disaster before but didn’t lose our capacity to work. It’s going to take years to recover.”Fire officials on Tuesday said the cause of the fire is still under investigation and there is no timeline for how long the investigation will last. Nobody was believed to have been inside the building when the fire started, according to Lt. Jonathan Baxter of the San Francisco Fire Department.The fire was located in Shed C of Pier 45, which housed at least 7,000 crab traps — priced between $250 to $300 apiece — as well as 2,000 shrimp traps and 1,000 black cod traps. All of the items were lost to the blaze, according to Larry Collins, who runs the San Francisco Community Fishing Association.San Francisco fishers have launched a to raise money to replace lost gear.“Fishermen are hoarders,” Collins said. “I know a guy who had 40 years’ worth of gear in there. We never throw things away, because we know at some point we’re going to use it again. You can’t just replace that overnight.”The fire had yet to be completely extinguished as of Tuesday morning. At the time, three areas were continuing to flare up within the fire’s footprint. Yellow fire hoses trailed into the burned building and yellow tape blocked off the scene as the day’s breeze carried a smoky scent. Throughout the morning, people stopped to stare and point.Baxter said investigators will dig through the rubble to determine the fire’s origin and cause only after the area is deemed safe.“We are hopefully going to have it released to investigators by Friday,” Baxter said. The investigation will be a “tedious, scientific, time-consuming” process, he added.The nearby sheds on Pier 45 were spared from the fire, but the structures were being cleared out and cleaned due to smoke and water damage.“We are working as quickly as we can, but we need to do it in a safe and orderly fashion,” said Randy Quezada, spokesman for the port.Updated to include drought zones while tracking water shortage status of your area, plus reservoir levels and a list of restrictions for the Bay Area’s largest water districts.Fisherman’s Wharf FireOn a positive note, local fishers said California’s commercial salmon season, which began last month along the coast from Pigeon Point in San Mateo County to the southern border, will not be greatly affected by the fire. Much of the salmon gear housed at the facility was on fishing boats during the time of the inferno, and fishers anticipate a bountiful year.While crab season will be a struggle for those who lost gear — much of which may not have been covered by insurance, according to Mike Conroy, executive director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations — the financial toll will expand beyond the people operating boats.“For every one dollar that a fisherman is paid, you have to wonder how much money does that generate for the city and state as well; there’s a downstream multiplier for everything,” Conroy said. “It’s all still so fresh, but this is going to be an issue for a lot of people associated with the industry.”Officials with San Francisco Travel, the city’s tourism bureau, were especially concerned by the fire. San Francisco tourism hit a record in 2019 with its 10th straight year of growth, but the industry was having struggles in 2020 even before the coronavirus pandemic, said Laurie Armstrong Gossy of San Francisco Travel.In a bit of luck, several of the more popular tourist attractions near the blaze were left unscathed, including the Jeremiah O’Brien, a World War II Liberty ship, and the Musée Mécanique, a museum devoted to historic arcade games.“We were fortunate those were not lost,” Armstrong said.Justin Phillips and Anna Bauman are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. Email: , Twitter: ,Updated to include drought zones while tracking water shortage status of your area, plus reservoir levels and a list of restrictions for the Bay Area’s largest water districts.

This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigateSarah Bates could still see debris smoldering on Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco on Tuesday, nearly 72 hours after sent flames higher than 100 feet and destroyed a processing and storage warehouse at the waterfront property.Bates, who fishes out of San Francisco, is one of dozens of local fishers who had equipment in the building at the time of Saturday’s inferno. And like the others, everything she had was destroyed.The storage facility on Pier 45 had 30 tenants, including many who allowed other fishers to store gear in their...

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Justin Phillips

Anna Bauman

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Fisherman’s Wharf fire a ‘disaster’ that will devastate San Francisco’s seafood industry

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