San Francisco Fire Department officials are investigating why worn tires kept a special strike team’s fire truck from rolling to fight the Wine Country blazes when an emergency call for help came in.

Fire Chief Joanne Hayes-White said the engine captain at Station 9 on Jerrold Street in the Bayview cited the truck’s tread-poor tires as the reason for not joining four other San Francisco strike teams rushing to Santa Rosa to battle the deadly Tubbs Fire early Oct. 9. A truck from Berkeley went in its place.

The next day, inspectors examined the truck’s tires and found some wear and tear. “Three of them were replaced as a precaution,” Hayes-White said.

What’s not clear is why a truck whose tires were unsafe to roll to a fire had been left in operation. The trucks are required to be checked daily. Crews are also required to fill out daily inspection reports that should have signaled the tire problem.

Plus, this wasn’t just any truck — it was one of only a dozen in the department whose crews are specially trained to answer wildfire calls around the state at a moment’s notice.

Hayes-White told us she hadn’t yet seen the “daily apparatus inspection checklist” to determine whether any tire problems had been noted in in the days leading up to the fire call.

In an added twist, the rumor circulating around the department is that the captain — who was both assigned to the engine and overseeing the station at the time — was planning a big fishing trip the morning of the fires. He reportedly had even made arrangements to be relieved early from his shift at about 6:30 a.m. — just two hours after the emergency call came in.

A Fire Department source tells us the captain’s boat was seen that morning hooked up to a pickup truck behind the firehouse.

The reasons for the truck’s grounding, and the fishing rumor, are “definitely under investigation,” Hayes-White said.

The chief emphasized that 12 trucks with 61 San Francisco firefighters did make it to the North Bay — and “they made a difference.”

Podesta’s pull: Democratic power lobbyist Tony Podesta, who is stepping down from the firm that bears his name after coming under investigation by federal Special Counsel Robert Mueller, has a political reach that extends to the Bay Area.

Oakland Unified School District records show that the financially strapped system paid $419,000 to the Podesta Group from 2010 to 2013 for lobbying work in Washington, D.C.

According to school records, the Podesta firm initially was paid $75,000 for a seven-month contract to help the Oakland district secure federal funds for youths who had been incarcerated in juvenile hall.

Jacqueline Minor, who was then Oakland Unified’s general counsel, told school board members at the time that she had initiated the proposed contract “to connect with a firm in Washington, D.C.” that could get “the attention of our federal elected officials.”

The Podesta Group was co-founded by brothers Tony and John Podesta. John left the firm in the 1990s and served in the Clinton and Obama administrations. Most recently, he was chairman of Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign.

It’s not clear how successful Tony Podesta’s efforts were for Oakland, but the firm itself certainly made out in the deal. It landed a succession of contract amendments from the school district that were worth up to $12,500 a month before its lobbying efforts ended in November 2013. They included arranging for site visits to Oakland for members of Congress.

As for what the school district got?

Given all the district turnover in recent years, district spokesman John Sasaki said, it’s not an easy question to answer: “So much of the staff here four years ago are not here.”

Lee’s slide: If poll numbers were grades, San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee would be at the bottom of the class.

Lee, whose second term has been haunted by growing traffic congestion, homeless encampments and skyrocketing rents, scored a 30 percent job approval rating in a recent Public Policy Polling survey.

Lee’s negatives were at 50 percent, with 19 percent unsure.

The findings from the Oct. 3-4 survey by the North Carolina outfit are the lowest private polling numbers on the mayor’s performance we have seen since his re-election in 2015. The survey of 501 likely voters had a margin of error of plus or minus 4.4 percentage points.

On the bright side, Lee is doing a lot better than President Trump. His approval rating in the city isn’t underwater, it’s at the bottom of the sea — 13 percent favorable to 83 percent who disapprove.

The Lee and Trump ratings were part of a more extensive poll commissioned by backers of a proposed ballot initiative calling for the city to hire lawyers to help tenants fight evictions.

On that question, the tenants are the clear winners — 60 percent of those surveyed say they would support the measure.