Dumpster Fire Near City's Engineering Dept. Causes $10,000 in Damages

A fire in a plastic dumpster near South San Francisco City Hall early Monday morning caused minor damage to the city's Engineering Department, a fire marshal said today.

The fire, which started inside a garbage bin next to the City Hall's Annex Building at 315 Maple Ave. around 1:30 a.m., caused approximately $10,000 in interior damage to the structure, Fire Marshal Luis Da Silva said.

The Annex Building houses the city's building, planning and engineering departments, as well as a portion of the Public Works Department.

Da Silva said that either somebody ignited the blaze or something was thrown into the Dumpster, which in turn ignited an area near the window of the Engineering Department.

It cannot be determined if the fire was intentionally set, he said.

"It was a relatively small fire, but the Dumpster was a plastic Dumpster that adds to the fuel," Da Silva said. "Whatever was in it got consumed, and since it was a plastic Dumpster, the only thing left was the metal handles and the rest was a pancake on the ground."

The one-alarm fire didn't keep the city from getting back to work Tuesday.

"The building department, engineering and planning were all functional Tuesday," Da Silva said.

However, he said engineering department staff might seek temporary quarters while the cleanup is under way.

In order to restore the space, a window will need to be replaced, a wall patched and the entire interior cleaned and repainted, Da Silva said.

"It was a small fire, it just happened to be in an important building to the city, being that it's where the permits and processes take place," he said.

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