San Francisco, California, always has been unique in a number of ways, being the home of the Golden Gate Bridge, Alcatraz Island, and Fisherman’s Wharf. And now the city can claim another world first—the San Francisco (CA) Fire Department’s new floating fire station, Fire Station No. 35, which replaced a 105-year-old station on land.
The new 14,900-square-foot fire station was designed as a floating structure to be less susceptible to earthquakes and rising sea levels. The existing fire station at Pier 22½ is an historic landmark, and the adjoining pier structure was significantly undersized and outdated, not meeting the fire department’s maritime operational needs or current seismic safety standards.
M. Magdalena Ryor, principal project manager at San Francisco Public Works Project Management Bureau, says that Fire Station No. 35, as the world’s first floating fire station, “presented unique challenges to us because there were no precedents to go by. We were trailblazers, and that was the largest challenge we had to face, but we had great consultants and engineers who worked together to make the station a reality.”
1 The San Francisco (CA) Fire Department’s new floating Fire Station No. 35 is a two-story, 14,900-square-foot structure built on a 1,650-ton float to make it less susceptible to earthquakes and rising sea levels. (Photos courtesy of San Francisco Public Works.)
2 The new floating fire station replaces the land-based 105-year-old historic fire station, which will still house Engine 35 while its crew will work out of the new station.
3 Public artwork is included on the station site as part of an observation area open to the public 24/7.
Public Works managed the design-build project on behalf of the fire department, Ryor points out, with the work being carried out by Swinerton-Power, the joint venture team of Swinerton, Power Engineering Construction Company, Shah Kawasaki Architects, and Liftech Consultants.
Ryor notes the two-story structure is built on top of a 173-foot-long by 96-foot-wide steel float that weighs 1,650 tons and is anchored by four guide piles. The design allows the structure to rise and fall with the natural tides of the bay, king tides, and projected sea level rise.
Lea Olson, principal with Liftech, says the engineering challenges centered around the fact that the floating fire station had to be designed to meeting cruise liner acceleration. “The float will always be moving in the wind and the waves,” Olson says, “so it had to meet the motion criteria used in a cruise ship. The four piles hold the float in place, and they are designed with a dampening system of rubber pads between steel plates that sit between the float and the piles.”
The first floor of the floating fire station has a rescue bay with a boat lift that pulls the fire department’s four Jet Ski watercraft into their berths, a bosun’s bay, a wet gear room, a decon room, a self-contained breathing apparatus (SCBA) room, a boom storage room, a boat storage area, mechanical and electrical rooms, and a night watch room.
Currently, 21 fire department staff are assigned to Fire Station No. 35, with seven members on shift at any given time. The Engine 35 crew, who also staffs the fireboat, consists of an officer and three firefighters, while the fireboat marine crew includes an officer, marine pilot, and marine engineer.
Charles Higueras, Public Works project manager, says San Francisco’s fireboats, the St. Francis, the Guardian, and the Phoenix, as well as a dive/rescue boat, are moored outside of the floating fire station. The fireboats have multiple land and water roles, responding to on-water emergencies such as capsized boats, distressed swimmers, and bridge jumpers, and also are responsible for fighting fires on or along San Francisco Bay that are inaccessible to land-based fire apparatus. The fireboats also can serve as fire hydrants, drawing water directly from the bay to supply land-based apparatus.
4 The new station’s watch room.
5 Station No. 35’s kitchen.
6 The new station has men’s and women’s locker/shower/toilet areas as well as separate toilet/shower facilities for four officers.
7 A view of the Bay Bridge from the public observation area.
The second floor has three dorm spaces, partitioned so they hold a total of 23 beds in various configurations; four officer dorms holding three beds each with their own shower/toilet facilities; a men’s locker/shower/toilet room; a women’s locker/shower/toilet room; an open concept kitchen, dining, and day room; a library; and a laundry facility.
The project didn’t involve any alterations to the historic Fire Station 35 building, Ryor points out, which is designated as San Francisco Landmark No. 225 and a contributing resource to the Port of San Francisco Embarcadero National Register Historic District. The existing building will continue to house Engine 35 and will be used to store equipment.
However, the north and south aprons were upgraded and structurally reinforced, as the south apron connects to an observation deck open to the public on the new floating fire station. “The deck will be accessible to the public 24/7,” Ryor says. “During the day, the public also will be able to access an area that will include two informational panels describing firefighting operations.”
The $39.9-million project was funded by the Earthquake Safety and Emergency Response body, which passed in 2014 with the approval of 79% of San Francisco voters.
ALAN M. PETRILLO is a Tucson, Arizona-based journalist, the author of three novels and five nonfiction books, and a member of the Fire Apparatus & Emergency Equipment Editorial Advisory Board. He served 22 years with the Verdoy (NY) Fire Department, including in the position of chief.
