About 45 residents were displaced from their Tenderloin apartment building after a large, 3-alarm sixth floor fire early Friday morning. The few dozen residents were temporarily sheltered in a Muni bus and eventually taken to a nearby church, according to the San Francisco Fire Department and a resident.
The fire began on the top floor of the six-story building at 50 Golden Gate Ave. just after 3 a.m. While the fire spread to the attic and roof, the fire department said that over 100 firefighters at the scene prevented it from moving to lower floors or nearby buildings.
Multiple occupants and six cats were rescued, but no injuries were reported.
Panfilo Perez Garcia, 51, said he woke up to his roommate banging on his door and quickly evacuated the smoke-filled building. He didn’t bring any of his belongings.
“I’m alive,” he said in Spanish. “That’s the most important thing.”
Perez Garcia has lived in a rent-controlled unit in the building for some 20 years, and returned this afternoon to grab some money and a few articles of clothing. He said his unit looked fine, but he’s not sure when he can return — and he was told he could not take most of his things away with him.
The building at 50 Golden Gate Ave. on Dec. 12, 2025, the morning after a fire that displaced 45 people. Photo by Eleni Balakrishnan.
“It is what it is,” Perez Garcia says, shrugging with a bundle of clothes under his arm, vacillating between upbeat and somber. He can’t stay at the shelter with his roommate because it’s too far from his restaurant job on Market Street, so for now he’s paying out of pocket for a room at a hotel run by one of his regular customers.
“I don’t know what to do now,” he said. “I’m very sad.”
As he walked down the street around 1 p.m., various passersby recognized him. Switching between Spanish and English, he let them know: “It’s gone, my building, brother!” or “Hola hijo, se quemó el edificio!”
A cat rescued at the fire at 50 Golden Gate on Dec. 12, 2025. Photo courtesy of the San Francisco Fire Department.
The department said the building’s age — records show it was built in 1911 — made stopping the fire difficult. A firefighter said the building has no sprinklers, a requirement in newer buildings, and hoses had to be carried up for water to reach the upper floors.
The fire was contained by 5:30 a.m., two and a half hours after firefighters arrived on the scene.
“This incident exemplified traditional, aggressive firefighting tactics, which ultimately contained the fire within the structure,” read a statement from the fire department.