Fire marshal details growth in prevention, new complaint unit and proposed code updates

Fire Marshal Dan DeCasio briefed the San Francisco Fire Commission on Aug. 14 about the Division of Fire Prevention and Investigation's expanded workload, new enforcement units and pending fire‑code changes.

DeCasio said the division completed 26,000 inspections in the last fiscal year — “a 50% increase over the last 10 years” — and processed about 13,000 construction permits, “an increase of a 100% over the last 10 years.” He described the division as roughly 100 members, organized into two bureaus (Fire Investigation and Fire Prevention) and a series of specialized sections handling plan check, field district inspections, operational permits, high‑rise inspections, school inspections, residential care facilities, the Port and SFO work.

The fire complaint section is new, DeCasio said, with four inspectors and a lieutenant assigned as an accelerated code enforcement team; the unit receives “anywhere from 400 to 500 complaints a month” and issues about “100 to 150 violations a month.” He said complaints that are not abated are…