Underground equipment fire sends smoke on to S.F. streets

Smoke and flames poured out of street-level manholes and more than 350 homes lost power after an underground equipment fire ignited early Tuesday in San Francisco’s Tenderloin neighborhood, officials said. Reports of booms, power failures and a small fire in an underground vault containing Pacific Gas and Electric Company equipment along Hyde and Geary streets came in around midnight, officials said. Both PG&E and San Francisco Fire Department crews responded to the scene, but the fire burned out on its own, said Abby Figueroa, a PG&E spokeswoman.