San Diego firefighters are taking an aggressive stance with the wind threat

When the call about a brush fire in Otay Mesa came out Thursday, the fire department responded. Not just San Diego Fire-Rescue, but Chula Vista, National City and Coronado. Officials quickly brought in air resources, hand crews and various types of fire rigs.

“We just swarmed it. We were able to catch a fire on a slope and have it cold in 20 minutes,” San Diego Fire-Rescue Deputy Chief Brian Brainard said Thursday.

Crews kept it to one hectare.

San Diego County fire officials have been on their feet all week as the Santa Anas and low humidity create dangerous fire weather, especially in dry brush. And nerves have frayed as San Diegans watch Los Angeles struggle with deadly, devastating fires.

The high fire danger warning for San Diego was extended until Friday at 18.00. The National Weather Service says Santa Ana winds hitting Los Angeles from the north will shift and come in from the east — blowing directly into San Diego County’s canyons — bringing winds of 40 to 70 mph in areas east of Interstate 15.

Earlier this week, on Wednesday night, the threat caused San Diego Gas & Electric to cut power to nearly 9,000 customers in and out of the state. Everyone had their lights back on Thursday afternoon, but the flurry of high winds could mean another public safety outage.

Improved weather conditions allowed crews to patrol power lines and inspect equipment in affected areas.

Schools are set to be closed Friday in the Mountain Empire, Warner and both Julian school districts due to the potential for power outages.

Fire officials across the region are working to prepare for — and more to prevent — a firestorm fueled by dry brush and brutal winds. Brainard pointed to collaboration among all metro-zone agencies. “The perfect example is what we experienced earlier today with the 1 hectare fire where we had all the different agencies on it,” he said.

“We’re doing whatever we need to do to make sure we’re protecting life, first and property, then the environment,” Brainard said.

Brainard said the agencies work with the state Office of Emergency Services and consider multiple factors when making resourcing and planning decisions. He noted that San Diego did not see Santa Ana’s “nearly as bad as what we saw in LA”

He also said that fire officials from all the regional fire authorities have been conferring regularly throughout the day, whether in meetings or phone calls. Among the considerations are where to place equipment and crews and how to replenish those resources to close gaps. “These types of questions are evaluated literally hour by hour during these important events,” Brainard said.

At Cal Fire, which has more than 50 stations in the region, all firefighters are on call, with all regular holidays canceled. The extra people mean that additional equipment, including water tenders and fire trucks, will be manned, and a few can be pre-positioned if desired. Cal Fire said it also has five helicopters, two air tankers and an air attack plane ready to go.

That kind of preparedness helped them jump quickly on a brush fire in the Crest area of ​​rural East County early Thursday afternoon. Crews kept it to less than 3 acres.

While firefighters worked in Crest, more than 20 Cal Fire and US Forest Service personnel worked in an office building located in the back of Cal Fire’s 5-acre San Diego-area headquarters just outside of El Cajon. Their job is to monitor and manage over 1.8 million acres of local land under their jurisdiction.

At the front of the room, under 10 separate 50-inch screens, sat intel specialist Suzann Leininger, who helps coordinate firefighters’ efforts in real time. The new displays — installed last summer — display maps, graphs and camera feeds with topographical information, weather patterns, even locations of individual engines and aircraft in the field.

Within seconds of receiving a 911 call, Leininger can pull feeds from AlertCalifornia — a UC San Diego camera system set up in remote areas to track wildfires — and search for smoke and flames. Artificial intelligence software also offers an assist that flags potential smoke or fire on camera feeds before a single witness calls in.

Within two minutes of confirming a fire, Leininger can send a one-page file to firefighters in the field that breaks down the expected burn zone of the fire and what to expect when they arrive on scene, including how unpredictable the fire can be. fire growth rate and terrain difficulty.

The forecasts and projections, Leininger says, have been used by Cal Fire for the past four years, but the high-resolution displays give crews a “picture worth a million words.”

This results in a faster and better response with the right resources.

“We had over 200 fires last year, but you hardly hear about them,” Leininger said, sitting at his electronic command center. “Our goal is to keep fires under 10 acres, and if it’s stopped early before it becomes newsworthy, that’s the best-case scenario.”

Staff writers Gary Robbins and Rob Nikolewski contributed to this report.

Originally published: 9 January 2025 at 7:35 PM PST