Meet Kiri, the tiny Japanese fire truck bringing joy to San Francisco

Back in the fifth month of the pandemic, when the city needed joy more than ever, Kiri the Japanese Fire Truck arrived in San Francisco.

Since then, the 1990 Daihatsu fire truck — maybe one-sixth the size of the typical American fire truck and 2 feet shorter than a Mazda Miata — has been quietly making the rounds. Like an out-of-town tourist or an international exchange student, Kiri has been meeting the locals and having its photograph taken at fire stations, at San Francisco landmarks, on Bay Area back roads and, in one “Herbie the Love Bug” moment, at the Sonoma County Raceway.

Kiri has an Instagram page, @teenytinyfiretruck, where the fire truck shares its adventures and speaks in the first person. For more information, we talked with Todd Lappin, a content designer and longtime Bernal Heights resident who seems like less of an owner and more like the father in a host family for the vehicle, which negotiates San Francisco hills like a native and can actually put out fires.

Q: How did you end up with a tiny Japanese fire truck?

A: I was not looking for a Japanese fire truck. But I do own another Japanese car. I imported a Nissan Skyline from Japan about three years ago, a right-hand-drive car. And when I did that I ended up learning about the system. How the importation process works. How the whole registration process works.

Under federal law we can import anything that’s 25 years old. … Once I figured that out, I realized I should get something completely alien to the United States. Something that we’ve never seen, that we have no analogy for and is very uniquely Japanese. And that led me to a little Kei (or micro-vehicle) fire truck.

Q: Where did Kiri come from?

A: I imported Kiri directly from Japan with a local importer I got to know. Essentially it was retired by the town, went through the auction system. It sold for almost nothing, because who wants a 30-year-old tiny fire truck? Then we plucked it out of there and basically put it on a boat. … They’re really cheap and it’s really easy. It’s one of those things that seems really intimidating until you do it. If anyone’s thinking about it, I’d say do it.

Q: What was Kiri’s life like in Japan? Where did the fire truck live and what did it do?

A: The fire truck served for almost 30 years in the town of Kirigamine, Japan, which is a small town in Nagano. (The population) is probably only a couple hundred. Kirigamine has a couple of resorts, a couple of hotels and it has a bunny hill ski area which is active in the winter. And a hundred yards from the ski resort is the municipal volunteer fire department lodge. (Kiri) was the town’s volunteer fire department truck.14

Q: Tell me more about the town.

A: Here’s the really sweet thing — “kiri” means fog and “gamine” means summit of the mountain. The town is literally called “foggy peaks” in Japanese, which is amazing. Which is why my family named the truck Kiri.

What’s been really sweet, is that through Instagram all these people from the town found out their tiny fire truck ended up in San Francisco, and they love it. … It’s helped forge a bridge between these two places in this funny way, because people are able to see this decontextualized thing having silly adventures in a place it’s not supposed to be. (Kirigamine) has become like a sister city.

Q: What was the journey to San Francisco like for Kiri?

A: (Kiri) went on a boat, which went to Long Beach, and then got trucked up here.

Here’s the other nifty thing about it — because the truck basically spent 30 years sitting in a firehouse shed, it has 4,000 miles on (the odometer) total. It didn’t get driven very much.

The day it arrived it was sort of like buying a very weird eBay purchase, and you don’t know what it’s going to be. I had seen a bunch of pictures, but you just don’t know. But it turned out perfect. It’s basically brand new. I’ve had to do absolutely nothing to it.

Q: What’s it like driving a small Japanese fire truck in San Francisco?

A: It’s so fun to drive. It’s a Kei vehicle, and that’s a legal classification. Basically they’re required by law to be small. Because of that it’s designed to be a local use vehicle; it’s not really meant for highway travel. Its top speed, if there’s a tailwind, is about 60 miles per hour.

But below 50, it’s actually very quick. It drives more like a Jeep than a Volkswagen Bug. It’s very torque-y. It loves the hills — it sprints up San Francisco hills like you wouldn’t believe. Bernal Heights is actually a lot like a small Japanese town, so driving around here just feels comfortable.

It kind of feels like driving a goat. It just has that goat-like energy. “Let’s go! Let’s go!”

Q: The Instagram feels like you’re going on fun adventures, as if Kiri is a tourist from out of town or an exchange student.

A: It makes even driving across town to do an errand feel like an epic road trip in the best way. It’s not about the distance; it’s about the time and the things that happen along the way. We’ll pick a food goal on the other side of town. “My family really needs a Portuguese egg tart from Mr. Bread over on Taraval.” And then you have all these little adventures along the way.

SOURCE:

sfchronicle   https://www.sfchronicle.com/local/article/Meet-Kiri-the-tiny-Japanese-fire-truck-bringing-16137119.php