What's underneath those brick circles?



There are 172 cisterns strategically located throughout the city so as to provide the Fire Department with a total storage capacity of approximately 11 million gallons of water.

Access to underground cisterns is made by removing the manhole cover located in the street. Determination of cistern location is based on two fundamental fire-control considerations. One is where the underground water distribution system is more susceptible to damage by earthquake. The six-lane Van Ness Avenue, running north and south from the San Francisco Bay to Market Street, best describes the other example.

Van Ness Avenue was a stand-and-fight location for firefighters in 1906, the year of the great earthquake. It was here that firefighters fought hard to stop the fire from burning further west. This major thoroughfare is lined with cisterns and high-pressure hydrants that may be called on some day in the future to stop a major conflagration from burning down the city.


Cisterns are designated by manholes with CISTERN SFFD marked on them, and most with a ring of bricks around the manhole cover in the street asphalt. Additionally, the nearest low-pressure hydrant's bonnet is painted green. Engines would utilize normal drafting procedures when using such cisterns. The manhole cover is removed and the engine spotted within 3 feet of the cistern opening, allowing for plenty of space to hook up and drop two lengths of hard-suction for drafting.

Previously, previously, previously.


8 Responses:

  1. nooj says:

    all i'm seeing is a place to hide in the coming zombie apocalypse.

    of course, all of us always carry a zipline gun, for times like these.

  2. Grego says:

    No props to Burrito Justice for, heh, uncovering this?

    • jwz says:

      By "uncovered", I guess you mean "linked to someone else's writing"?

      When sites A and B contain, you know, actual writing, and site C quotes them, I link to sites A and B. Because site C -- like site D, that would be me -- didn't do shit.

      Like I said before:


      • Grego says:

        I've never seen Burrito Justice repost a bare link from anyone. That's part of what makes it my favorite SF blog--the author researches and presents interesting information in really cool ways. You know, actual writing. BJ synthesized information from six different sources to put together the article on the cisterns.

        I'm not overly interested in a string of "via" tags either, but this is not that.

        • jwz says:

          Great, he's good at summarizing and paraphrasing. Obviously no shits about that were given here, and I quoted primary sources once I dug them out.