i'm derek, i'm hyungry, and ready to eat. these vendors offer a variety of the streets near you. these mobile restaurants are serving up original, creative and unusual combinations. you can grab something simple like a grilled cheese sandwich or something unique like curry. we areher here in the average eight -- upper haight. you will be competing in the quick buy food challenge.

an appetizer and if you are the winner you will get the title of the quitck bite "chompion." i am here with matt cohen, from off the grid. >> we assembled trucks and put them into a really unique heurban settings. >> what inspired you to start off the grid? >> i was helping people lodge mobile food trucks. the work asking for what can we get -- part together? we started our first location and then from there we expanded locations. >> why do think food trucks have grown? >> i have gotten popular because the high cost of

starting a brick and mortar or strong, the rise of social media, trucks can be easily located, and food trucks to offer a unique outdoor experience that is not easily replaced by any of their setting any worlwhere else in san franc. san francisco eaters are interested in cuisine. there adventuress. the fact theyuse grea use great ingredients and make gourmet food makes unpopular. >> i have been dying to have these. >> i have had that roach coach

experience. it is great they're making food they can trust. >> have you decided? >> we are in the thick of the competition? >> my game was thrown off because they pulled out of my first appetizer choice. >> how we going to crush clear? >> it will be easy. probably everyone has tried, something bacon tell us delicious. >> -- people tell us is delicious. >> hopefully you think the same thing. >> hopefully i am going to win. we're in the financial district. there is a food truck right there. every day changes. it is easy and fun to go down. these are going to be really

good. >> how are you going to dominate? >> i think he does not know what he is doing. >> i was thinking of doing [unintelligible] we are underrepresented. >> i was singing of starting an irish pub. that was my idea. >> one our biggest is the corned beef and cabbage. we are asking people what they're thinking in getting some feedback. >> for a lot of people i am sure this combination looks very wrong. it might not sound right on paper but when you taste it to or have it in your mouth, it is a variety. this is one of the best ways in creating community. people gather around and talk about it and get to know different cultures. that brings people together and i hope more off the grid style

and people can mingle and interact and remove all our differences and work on our similarities. this creates opportunity. >> the time has come and i am very hungry. what have you got? >> i got this from on the go, a sandwich, and a caramel cupcake. i went with home cooking. what de think? >> i will have another bite. >> sounds good. >> that was fantastic. let's start with you. >> i had the fried mac and

cheese, and twinkies. i wanted to get something kind of classic with a twist on it. >> it was crispy. >> i will admit. >> want to try fieried mac and cheese? >> was that the best twinkie? >> would you say you had the winning male? >> definitely. >> no. >> you are the "chompion." clair has won. you are the first "chompion."

>> they know it iwas me because i got a free meal. and check a map on -- check them out on facebook. take a peek at the stuff we have cut. to get our -- check out our blog. i will have

>> good afternoon, i'm lawrence kornfield. welcome to our brown bag lunch. the fire department as a lot to do with fire escapes in san francisco. we have tens of thousands of fire escapes in san francisco.

it's sort of like utility wires, until you start looking for them. you don't even see them. today we're going to look at them and for them and talk a little bit about what they are there for and how they should be maintained. what our standards are. so we are right here in front of building services office at 1660 mission street. we have one of many buildings served by fire escapes. they are typically used when there's a required means of existing or egressfrom the building. this building has a main stairway and all these fire escapes. i don't know about the backside. it probably has more exits that would be typically required to have. >> typically fire escapes are

the second. the first is for existing buildings. my guess is the building has been broken up. that's why they add more than one fire escape. >> and in fact one of basis of the building code is to get people how the. how do you get people out safely? >> right and the cold always says, if one is blocked there should be another one in 99 percent of buildings >> and there are limitations on how you exit. you can't exit from one tenant space to another if that space is locked. that's why we have extra fire escapes on this building. let's look up at these fire escapes for a second. the fire escapes have a few

specific elements. and we'll talk in detail about what they are. they include a way out on top fire escape balcony. the fire escape balconies. the ladder from the lowest balcony to the ground and a way to get on to the roof. i think those are the main elements of the fire escape. >> yeah. >> okay. and we're going to look at a bunch of different ones. this is a good example across the street. so first of all, how do you get out on to the fire escape? you can't have to climb out on a little window. we can see there are large, openable window pain doors,

>> they did allow them to climb out windows and those are grandfathered in. >> as bill mentioned, there's an important part of the codes, they are not retroactive. you had to bring them up to today's standards. it's allowed to be maintained in the original construction. that's one of reasons we have old fire escapes. they are not required to be upgraded. >> if this was built today, a fire escape would not be allowed. they do not meet the second means of egresscode. >> but in all the existing ones like this one, you have to

maintain them and keep a second means. according to the codes the building was built under. we are allowed to have fire escapes in existing buildings to provide a new exist from a historic building. it specifically allows fire escapes. we are allowed to have fire escapes for new exits. it's under some circumstances >> right. r3. one and 2 family homes. even new ones, which is not under the jurisdiction of the fire department. we will allow new buildings to have fire escapes if they can show reasonable standard for why they cannot put in a conforming stair sway. fire escapes are essentially providing a legal second stairway.

it's not quite a second stairway. that's 60 to 70 degrees. the fire department does to the agree and the more hazardous. >> if it was built, we allow you to maintain them. >> speaking of maintenance. we will get to maintenance later. we have people that do fire escape maintenance. going back to talking about the elements, we have access to the fire escape and then we have a fire escape balcony, they need a balcony to get access. you don't climb out directly on to a ladder. for one and 2 family dwellings, but there are very few of them.

we had an exception under there for no balconies. they are almost always required >> jomes are not allowed. they are pole ladders and they open up into a vertical ladder, their product lists doesn't require a balcony. we made a decision that is not even close to provide equivalency to a stairway. how many people. >> yeah, we have a question over here >> what year was this law changes and fire escapes required >> the question was, at who point was the regulations change from allowing fire

escapes to second stairs? >> that would be under the fire departments jurisdiction. >> it was actually within the last 10 to 15 years. i started 12 or 11 years ago and there was improvement plans with fire escapes. it came from the state. state farm was the one that came out and said, no no ones. >> yeah. so it's pretty recent. i can remember. i'm not that old. >> you're not. you are a young guy. so we have balconies, i handed out to you a whole set of technical standards. we will not go through that unless you have questions. if you are watching this and you want a copy, call us, our

number is 558-6025. we have the ladders that connect to the next balcony, those are regulated under the local, administrative bulletins and there's retroactive provisions in the state building code about how they have to be. >> the angle and width. i believe that's all covered in the handout. >> typically san francisco fire escapes and we will see, had angles of somewhere between 60 and 72-degree ladders. i can't from this angle tell what that is. the state has made it clean that 60 degrees is what they consider to be the maximum safe angle. most of the existing ones are steeper, up to 72 degrees.

and these hand rails and they step down on to a landing and you walk around and go down. at the bottom, this is the way to get to the ground. this is great. this has something called a counter balance ladder. it means that as you walk down to the bottom of the fire escape, there's a ladder sticking out horizontally. it will go down because there's a weight. >> it doesn't go all at once. >> so counter balance ladders are what the code currently require. but as we walk around, you will see many of them don't have counter balance ladders, they have drop ladders and accordians and all that. this is an excellent type of ladder. you can see from the end of

counter balance ladder, there's a chain. if you follow the chain up. it goes up to a pulley and down the other side to a weight. can you see that? the big weight is the counter balance weight and the code prescribes how many force it will take to operate that counter balance. >> is there a maximum height? >> yes. there's a maximum and minimum. >> it's in the handout >> ladder xdto the ground. on page 6, 2.7. a permanent, 50 pounds. 150 pounds 1 quarter of the way will start to swing slowly down. and no fire escapes will be

less than 14 feet above the sidewalk. when any part falls away, it has to be 14 feet. >> the top ladder too, that's a straight ladder. that's for fire department use. that's not for somebody fleeing a fire. you are supposed to come down. we use these things as a second way to get up. we like this, because we can run up those things. we don't have to go in the building. the stamp pipes are on there. or a wet stand pipe. actually for us, it's a convenience. it's a goose neck ladder over the top. but, once again, that's for fire department use.

not for civilians. we can always get a ladder up and get them off. i have done that frequently. that's something that happens frequently in the city. >> you don't need a ladder from the roof in it's less than 4 and 12. you need to have a ladder. >> once again, the fire department shouldn't be up there. we are going to walk through this and cross otis street. we will look at sand types and some of the other stuff. >> okay. this is, we are on otis and golf.

>> this is serving 50 or more people. this is a really interesting fire escape with these curved balconies. and once again, we have the elements that we were discussing. the balconies, access. this accordion ladder. what does the fire department think about the accordian ladders? >> they got dropped out. it's retroactive. they have to bring them up to today's code. i have a story to tell. when i was in the sunset district. you see a crank on the side, you undue a lever and they are supposed to fall down. we did it, 50 to 75 percent of the time it doesn't work. there's, it's on the owner, the owner is supposed to maintain

these ladders and we have a person here who does the maintenance. do you have anything you want to say? >> an escape artist. >> i believe these are supposed to be checked once a year. >> one of my competitors says they need to be checked twice a year. i have encountered those that don't go down because they haven't been checked >> well, after and brush cleaning, and lubrication, we jump up and down on them. i weigh 170 pounds. they don't go down, like we're stretching them. crank them back up. break them free. after we lubricated them.

>> what kind of lubrication? if it's a frozen type. we use a penetrable type >> with escape artists, you regularly check them? >> it's all us calling them each year requesting if they would like us to do maintenance service for their drop ladder. each year it's quite simple and easy procedure to do. and we appreciate that people take pride and understand their fire escapes and drop ladders are a part of their building's safety system. just like the sprinkler systems. they are usually located along a fire escape ladder way, platform system. the fire department does use

them to approach emergency situations in buildings. >> this is interesting on who's checking them. in san francisco for residential units and motels and hotels, the housing inspection division is required to check every 5 years to do an inspection of the buildings. and the procedures have changed to require they operate the fire escape when they do that inspection. have you gone to those where they require to operate the fire escape? >> absolutely. we got the call from a property owner saying they have been sited or requested by a housing inspector. we will inspect the fire escape before maintenance and do

maintenance repairs. i feel confident that the fire escapes are safe. ask we will provide a certificate. that describes what we found and what we didn't. so far, that has been approved by the fire department >> all exterior balconies of wood have to be certified by an architect or licensed pest control every how many years? 5 years and they are starting to get that under way and they requires certification by someone with those licenses as well. this is a different concept. this is not a residential building. they don't do these 5-year or yearly inspection on this. so, does the fire department come out and check these at all

>> probably not. we are supposed to come out for assembly permits. we are supposed to come out. actually, you probably walk through and checks the exits . whether they physically do the fire escape. i don't know. >> so assembly occupancies. the fire department has a state mandate to be an annual check. >> we had a question here >> does the fire department have a list of all the different assembly buildings with fire escapes that need to be looked at? >> no. we have a list of all the assembly, whether they know which one has a fire escape. we are obviously trying to discourage that.

if you can imagine getting 50 people out would be tough. i said 10 or 15 years that was residential. for assembly, that's 20 years >> you might want to look at the golden gate theater has these enormous counter balance fire escapes that can handle an occupant load of hundreds of people and really wide and actually very low slope. but we do, we have in san francisco, we have assembly occupants and they check those too. >> the american club up here that