Fires San Francisco

A settlement package of more than $9 million for more than 100 victims of a Hunters Point fireworks blaze in 1986 has been finalized, attorneys said. Primary defendants in the case resolved in San Francisco Superior Court were Jon and Lacques Legallet and their property management company, which owned and took care of the Bay View Industrial Park, where an explosion in an illegal fireworks factory killed nine people and hurt more than 20. The highest individual settlement was $1.

Firefighters early Thanksgiving morning fought a huge blaze that raced through five Victorian homes condemned after the Oct. 17 earthquake, officials said. Arson inspectors were investigating the fire, which began about 3:00 a.m. along a residential block in the Mission District and quickly spread, said Fire Chief Fred Postel. No one was injured in the blaze, which was extinguished by 6 a.m., officials said. One of the stately but damaged homes collapsed. Pacific Gas & Electric Co.

A massive earthquake struck the Bay Area on Tuesday, killing scores of people, most of them in the collapse of a double-decked freeway in Oakland. Death toll estimates ranged from 62 to more than 200. Hundreds more were injured, scores of buildings were shattered or in flames and a portion of the roadway on the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge buckled. The violent quake, which hit at 5:04 p.m. and lasted about 15 seconds, had a magnitude of 6.

The Thrifty Jr. drugstore chain, reacting to protests from residents and an arson fire last month, abandoned plans to open a new store in San Francisco's contentious Haight-Ashbury neighborhood, the company announced. Thrifty said in a statement that "recent events raise serious concerns over the ultimate safety of the neighborhood." An arson blaze swept through the construction site on Sept. 22, destroying it and nearby buildings, leaving 60 apartment dwellers homeless.

A fire in an electrical system atop the 1 Embarcadero Center office tower caused $250,000 in damage early Friday and left the top 20 floors of the 44-story building without power, officials said. Officials said the smoldering fire was called in about 2:35 a.m. and was brought under control at 3:25 a.m. No one was injured. Pacific Gas & Electric Co. spokesman Ron Rutkowski said the power was shut off at 3:12 a.m.

A lifetime of work by artist Tony Duquette was destroyed Thursday night when a five-alarm fire gutted the Pavilion of St. Francis art gallery. "Our Lady of the Angels," a collection of eight 28-foot-tall angels that Duquette created as a gift for Los Angeles' 200th birthday, was among the critically acclaimed art pieces destroyed in the blaze. "The angels went to heaven last night," said John McCloskey. He was among the more than 150 firefighters who battled the blaze, which started at 9:15 p.m.

A fire spawned by Tuesday's killer earthquake blow-torched through at least two luxury apartment buildings in San Francisco's stylish Marina District, raging out of control for nearly four hours and prompting fears of many deaths amid the rubble. At least three people were cofirmed dead, including one in a nearby building. The unidentified man was pinned in debris and died while firefighters tried frantically to cut him free with a chain saw, according to San Francisco paramedic David Drabble.

More than 90 people were left homeless by a fire that gutted nine Victorian-style apartment buildings Saturday in the Haight-Ashbury district. It took nearly 150 firefighters two hours to douse the flames near Pierce and Haight streets, said Lt. Bill Breslin. One firefighter suffered minor injuries. No one else was hurt. Officials estimated damage at roughly $3 million. "Those buildings are all wooden and pretty close together. That helped it move fast," Breslin said.

Arson is suspected in a fire at an Army base child-care center in San Francisco that has been the focus of a child molestation investigation, the FBI said Wednesday. The blaze Tuesday destroyed a classroom in a wood-frame building at the Child Development Center on the Presidio Army base near the Golden Gate Bridge.

To my amazement, not one of Willa Cather's books was on anyone's list of 100 best (last month when the Modern Library listed its choices of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century). She was one of the most distinguished American authors--a strong woman's voice at a time when women's voices were expected to be weak. "The Professor's House," published in 1925, was written when Cather was middle-aged.