Blaze Under Shuttered Pier 54 Extinguished; No Injuries, Cause Investigated

Fire crews from land and sea extinguished a fire beneath Pier 54 in San Francisco after a witness at Station 4 in the Mission Bay area reported smelling and seeing smoke in the air around 8 a.m. Sunday. The blaze burned under the shuttered pier, was knocked down by the San Francisco Fire Department, and was declared out in roughly 30 minutes; officials reported no injuries.

Responders initially found a section smoldering under the pier. Firefighters retreated from the decking when, officials said, "their feet were slipping through weakened sections of the pier," and supervisors summoned the SFFD fireboat St. Francis to douse the remainder of the fire. A San Francisco Fire Department photo from the scene shows the fireboat alongside the pier during the response.

Pier 54 has been closed since late 2024 after city engineers deemed the structure structurally unsound. That prior closure shaped tactics at the scene: weakened decking prevented crews from fighting the fire entirely from land and required water-borne suppression from the St. Francis to finish extinguishing hot spots under the pier.

City officials have not yet determined the cause of the Sunday blaze, and the incident remains under investigation. The SFFD’s initial timeline—witness alert at about 8 a.m., discovery of smoldering material beneath the pier, retreat for safety, and boat-launched suppression—forms the basis of the ongoing inquiry into origin and damage.

A Facebook post circulating photos claimed the fire caused a partial building collapse on the southern part of Pier 54 and spread to two adjoining buildings. That specific collapse-and-spread allegation is not corroborated by fire department accounts or by the land-and-sea response timeline; city officials and fire investigators have not confirmed any collapse or secondary structure involvement in their initial statements.

The site carries a long maritime history: archival material records a major fire at Cunard Steamship Line Pier No. 54 on May 6, 1932, at the foot of West 13th Street. That historical blaze likely began in a boiler room, caused an estimated $2 million in damage at the time, and resulted in one fatality—Lt. Col. Ralph A. Kluge—when a fire hose uncoupled and struck him. The 1932 account is archival context and is distinct from the Sunday incident.

Investigators will determine whether the under-pier smoldering originated from debris, vandalism, electrical issues, or other causes and will assess any structural impact on the closed facility. The combination of Pier 54’s late-2024 closure for unsound decking and Sunday’s under-pier fire underscores ongoing safety and maintenance challenges for waterfront infrastructure along San Francisco’s Embarcadero.