Not long after that, a smaller group will show up at 20th and Church streets to spray a coat of gold paint on a hydrant that prevented the spread of the big fire and saved the Mission District.

And at 9, the Fire Department will celebrate its own anniversary with an event in Union Square. The department will be putting its best foot forward — new fire engines, antique fire equipment, a demonstration of an aerial ladder as tall as a six-story building and warnings about the chances for another big disaster.

Flimsy boom town

Fires have always been a menace in San Francisco, a city with a wooden heart. All the famous buildings are steel and concrete, but most of the residents live in wooden houses — in the Mission, in the prized Victorians of the Western Addition, in the stucco-covered homes of the Richmond and the Sunset districts. They’re lined up in rows, from the western hills to the ocean.

During the Gold Rush, San Francisco was a city built entirely of wood and canvas. It was a flimsy boom town if there ever was one. And on Christmas Eve 1849, a tremendous fire broke out. There was no defense, only men carrying buckets of water.

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