San Francisco is divided into 10 Fire Battalions. This week Neighborhood Emergency Response Team members (NERTs) from all reaches of Battalion 4’s neighborhoods came together to meet the Battalion Chief and tour Station 38.
Map of San Francisco’s 10 Fire Battalions
Thanks to Jon Kruse of the 4 Heights Group for arranging this rare tour with Captain Tom who is the NERT Program Coordinator, and the new Battalion Chief. They told us they are longtime associates in the department. They went to (fire?) school together 27 years ago!
The yellow Pelican case holds our staging area materials. We also have a canopy stored here.
In the event of a disaster, this is the Battalion that our particular NERT groups will be assisting, and communicating with via the Auxiliary Communications Service by HAM radio, and by runner.
We will set up a staging area in nearby Lafayette Park to gather resources awaiting tactical deployment. We practice this at our citywide drills twice a year, and sometimes neighborhoods practice their own. In the Marina we don’t have enough active NERTs to man our staging area so we’ll stage with the Pacific Heights groups right around the corner from Station 38. Our yellow boxes of staging area materials is stored here.
The Chief, who comes from Battalion 3 in the Tenderloin - the busiest station in the nation? -, described the nature of his work.
“It’s controlled chaos.”
We learned among tasks that the department may need our extra on the ground help with is carrying the hose - and it’s heavy.