Historic SF Church Goes Up in Flames as 100 Firefighters Battle Blaze for Hours

A century-old Lower Pacific Heights landmark is a smoking shell tonight after a fire tore through the Seventh-day Adventist church at California and Broderick streets, sending more than 100 firefighters into a hours-long defensive battle, triggering a shelter-in-place order for several surrounding blocks, and forcing two nearby homes to evacuate before crews finally got the upper hand by Monday night.

The fire was first reported around 1:58 p.m. Monday as a single-alarm call at the multi-story Central Seventh-day Adventist Church, San Francisco Fire Department said. Within roughly twenty minutes it had jumped to two alarms, with flames "reported throughout the top level of the church," San Francisco Fire Department wrote, and by 5 p.m. crews had called a third alarm and pulled out of an offensive interior attack entirely. At least five separate 911 calls came in before the first engine even arrived, Fire Capt. Jonathan Baxter told KTVU, and it was unclear whether the callers were churchgoers or passersby.

A church wrapped in scaffolding

The building, dated to 1892, was mid-renovation and wrapped in scaffolding when the fire broke out, with at least two workers reportedly on site beforehand, according to KTVU. It's "not yet known if the construction is a contributing factor to the fire," San Francisco Fire Department cautioned, and the exact cause remains under investigation. Firefighters told local outlets the structure's age worked against them: the church's old timbers and cavernous open interior created what KTVU described as ideal conditions for flames to spread through hidden void spaces, eventually forcing crews to abandon the interior and switch to hosing the building down from ladder trucks outside.

By around 3:50 p.m., flames were visible leaping from the roofline, and a loud boom reportedly rattled a news crew filming from the scene, per KRON4.

One SFFD firefighter told the station it had been 28 years since San Francisco last saw a church fire of this scale. Portions of the structure have since collapsed, and it remains unclear, per NBC Bay Area, how much of the building can ultimately be salvaged.

 

Shelter-in-place, then a long firewatch

As smoke spread through the neighborhood, the city issued a shelter-in-place order covering the 2600, 2700, and 2800 blocks of California Street along with the 2000 and 2100 blocks of Divisadero Street, citing poor air quality, according to CBS News. PG&E also cut power to the surrounding area as a precaution. The order was lifted around 6:10 p.m., though San Francisco Fire Department kept evacuation orders active for two homes identified as too close to the blaze through the evening.

By 10 p.m., the department declared the fire contained and shifted to firewatch, with crews staying on scene overnight to catch any flare-ups or rekindles. All shelter-in-place and evacuation orders were lifted, though the block remained active. Department spokespeople said no one was injured and, crucially, no one has been permanently displaced — those temporarily affected were connected with the American Red Cross, per San Francisco Fire Department. KTVU separately reported one firefighter sustained a minor hand injury while battling the blaze.

Neighbors thank the department

Photos from the scene the next morning showed the church's bell tower still standing but its roofline visibly breached, with scaffolding draped in soot and chunks of terracotta tile scattered across California Street. Some residents in the surrounding apartment buildings hung handwritten signs reading "THANK YOU SFFD" from their windows, a small gesture toward a department that kept the fire contained largely to the church itself rather than letting it spread to the dense residential blocks nearby.

San Francisco's long history of church fires

This isn't the city's first brush with a sanctuary lost to flame. St. Mary's Cathedral on Van Ness burned down in a 1962 arson after seven decades of service, and more recently the Mission District's St. John the Evangelist Episcopal Church was gutted by a suspected arson, forcing its congregation to worship outdoors for months during repairs, as ABC7 reported. Historians at the Western Neighborhoods Project have documented numerous San Francisco houses of worship lost to fire over the past century, several of them old wood-frame buildings not unlike the Central Seventh-day Adventist Church.

Old, ornate, and mid-renovation is also a familiar combination for fire crews: scaffolding-wrapped historic buildings undergoing seismic or cosmetic upgrades tend to carry extra fuel loads from construction materials and temporary wiring, and inspectors statewide have flagged active job sites as a recurring complicating factor in major structure fires. Whether that dynamic played any role here is still an open question pending the official cause determination.

Legal and insurance implications

With the cause still under investigation, the church's general contractor and any subcontractors on site could face scrutiny if fire marshals trace the ignition to construction activity, electrical work, or improperly stored materials — a familiar pattern in renovation-related fires that can trigger liability claims, OSHA review of jobsite safety practices, and disputes between the property owner's insurer and the contractor's coverage. Because the building is a known historic structure in the neighborhood, any rebuild will also likely need sign-off from San Francisco's Planning Department and possibly the Historic Preservation Commission before reconstruction can begin, a process that has stretched on for years at other fire-damaged landmark buildings in the city.

San Francisco Fire Department public information officers are expected back on scene Tuesday morning from 6:30 to 8 a.m. to provide further updates, according to the department's latest statement. Hoodline will update this story as more information becomes available.