Building Near Civic Center Sees Early Morning Fire, Followed By Machete Incident and Standoff With Resident

The article was originally published on https://sfist.com/2025/08/18/building-near-civic-center-sees-early-morning-fire-followed-by-machete-incident-and-standoff-with-resident/There was a fair bit of chaos at a residential building at the edge of the Tenderloin Monday morning, near Civic Center, prompting a citywide alert to avoid the area. An alert that went out Monday at 9:30 am from the San Francisco Department of Emergency Management mentioned "fire activity" and urged city residents to avoid the area of 44 McAllister Street, near Jones Street. But that fire situation actually occurred hours earlier, around 3 am, on the building's fourth floor, as KRON4 reports. San Francisco police responded to the building at 6:43 am on a report of a person threatening others and "waving" a machete.