Residents displaced after 3-alarm fire erupts at San Francisco Mission tire shop

SAN FRANCISCO (KTVU/BCN) - Seventeen adults are displaced, but no injuries are reported after a three-alarm blaze in San Francisco's Mission District Sunday morning. It started at 7:45 a.m. at the Rolling Stock tire shop on 16th and Shotwell streets.

"As you can imagine a tire shop has lots of fuel for the fire," explained San Francisco Fire Chief Joanne Hayes-White. "You see our aerial units pouring copious amounts of water into the fire. It's too dangerous for us to be in the facility and the roof is now gone."

Flames initially spread to an apartment building next door, prompting officials to evacuate the structure. 

"I could feel the heat," exclaimed evacuee Bob White. "Someone knocked on my door and said, 'Bob, look out the window! Look out the window!'" Another resident, Oscar Lepe, ran to his parents' bedroom. "All I wanted to do was just wake them up and get them out because they were still asleep," he said. Looking at the gutted business next to his second floor apartment, Lepe had two words, "very thankful".

Firefighters were able to limit the damage to the apartment building and the business that share walls with the burned structure.

"We've got a lot of old wooden buildings so it's not uncommon for these fires to start small and quickly spread," explained Assistant Fire Chief Dave Franklin. "It's not unusual to get in the fire building and then into the exposure buildings to limit the growth of the fire." Firefighters had to cut through the attic of the three-story apartment next door to keep the flames from spreading through the entire structure.

The fire caused thick smoke in the area, as was widely documented on social media.

The Red Cross was called to the scene to assist residents who cannot yet return home. 

Neighboring buildings have smoke, water, and some fire damage.

The cause of the fire is under investigation. The tire shop was not open at the time of the blaze.