Seen In San Francisco: Unlike Moses, Firefighters Extinguish Burning Bush

Joe Eskenazi

San Francisco firefighters discover a light roasting flowers in a planter at the PUC building

New dimensions in mixed metaphors -- Shakespeare and the Old Testament (get ready): San Francisco Firefighters came to extinguish the burning bush, not to praise it.

Very late on Friday, your humble narrator didn't realize there was something unusual about a mesquite barbecue odor permeating Downtown until a fire truck pulled up in front of the PUC Building on Van Ness and McAllister.

A handful of firefighters leaped off the engine and fast-walked up the stairs, where they discovered the source of the smokiness -- the glass in a light illuminating a planter was shattered, and the high-temperature beams were scorching the flora.

A fireman doused the vegetation with his extinguisher -- as Mother Nature would do later that night. All in all, it turned out to be one of the engine company's less intense -- but more photogenic -- calls of the evening:

Joe Eskenazi