Wind-whipped fires keep San Diego region on edge, with more Santa Anas on the way – San Diego Union-Tribune

Fortunately, Rod Mitchell’s dogs woke him up at 2am. He had slept through his landlady’s phone calls, unaware of an approaching forest fire. But after Oscar and Max got him going, the Bonsall man opened his front door to find flying embers racing through the air and firefighters already on the 5-acre property.

“The fireman, he said, ‘Where did you come from?'” Mitchell said. “And I said ‘I just got out of bed’ and he says, ‘We didn’t think anyone was left up here’.”

Mitchell, 72, was among dozens of north county residents shaken from sleep very early Tuesday and urged to flee as wind-whipped fires tore through bare brush. Three fires broke out there overnight, one of them growing to 85 acres. Hours later and several miles to the south, residents in neighborhoods near the Fashion Valley mall got a jolt of their own from evacuation orders and warnings as a brush fire swept along a hillside. San Diego Fire-Rescue said it grew to 15 to 20 acres.

Firefighters moved quickly and threw heavy resources at the fires as Santa Ana winds delivered a big, direct hit to San Diego County, arriving from the east-northeast before dawn and hurtling largely unhindered through dry mountain passes and canyons. Sill Hill in the Cuyamaca Mountains was hit with gusts of 102 mph, equivalent to a Category 2 hurricane. Deer Canyon near Black Mountain: 80 mph, equivalent to a Category 1 hurricane.

The winds prompted authorities to divert high-profile vehicles from Interstate 8 from Alpine to Ocotillo for a time, and an overturned big rig blocked highway traffic.

San Diego Gas & Electric cut power to several of its customers to minimize the chances of starting wildfires. As of 4 p.m. Tuesday, nearly 16,000 customers were without power, and the utility warned that another 68,000 could potentially have their power lines shut down.

The weaker Santa Anas are expected to blow late Wednesday and early Thursday, according to Adam Roser, a forecaster. There’s also a chance to see more than a quarter inch of rain in the mountains on Saturday and Sunday.

“But that won’t be enough to make the wildfire threat go away,” Roser said.

San Diego has received only 0.16 inches of rainfall (measured at the airport) since July 1st—barely enough to cover the bottom of a drinking glass. Forecaster Dave Munyon said the region has never seen a period starting July 1 stretch so long with so little rainfall since records began in 1850. The brush is dry and the wind is strong — the conditions for a Wildfire grows out of control. .

Within about an hour, starting shortly after midnight Tuesday, three wildfires broke out in the Fallbrook and Bonsall areas. The largest was the Lilac fire, which jumped to 85 acres as it headed west of Interstate 15 and south of state Route 76.

Authorities used night-flying helicopters to drop water, and dozens of firefighters battled it on the ground.

“We had pretty strong gusts at the beginning of the fire,” said Cal Fire Capt. Mike Cornette.

At one point, both sides of Interstate 15 in the area were closed to traffic, as were portions of Old Highway 395, including at SR-76.

Sheriff’s deputies rushed out to warn sleeping Bonsall residents to clear out, using patrol cars and a sheriff’s helicopter to sound distinctive “hi-low” sirens. Residents were also notified by reverse 911 calls and deputies going door-to-door, sheriff’s Lt. Noah Zarnow said.

After finding firefighters on his doorstep in Bonsall, Mitchell fled with his dogs but without his phone. In the middle of the morning, he was sitting in his pickup at a roadblock. He had been there all night, waiting to be allowed to return home, where the outer walls are not made of wood covered with stucco or siding, but of foam blocks filled with concrete.

At Castle Creek Country Club outside north Escondido, about 20 vehicles were waiting in the parking lot when Red Cross volunteers arrived at 1 p.m. 3 to open it as an evacuation center, volunteer Nat Giraud said.

The lilac fire spread from the edge of nearby I-15 in a southwesterly direction and reached across the back of a tan home on the east side of Ranchos Ladera Road, burning up to the property’s front yard. The homeowners had clearly put considerable effort into clearing away the brush, leaving room for a solid defense.

Strike crews were able to hold out in these locations. By preventing them from igniting, they avoided the shower of embers that the wind would have pushed south and west towards more homes.

“The team that fought here did a great job,” said Battalion Chief Shawn Johnson of the Sonoma County Fire District. His unit and others, after helping fight the Palisades fire in Los Angeles, were sent south two weeks ago, staged for a quick response.

Hours later, as crews brought the Lilac fire under control, a brush fire broke out on Friars Road across from Fashion Valley Mall. It raced toward homes, prompting evacuation orders and warnings for some on the west side of Mission Valley and Linda Vista.

Law enforcement officers knocked on doors to evacuate people and blocked streets to prevent others from entering the area. In both directions of state Route 163, the Friars Road exits were also closed for several hours, reopening around 10 p.m. 4:30 p.m

With dozens of fire trucks and police vehicles parked along Friars Road and throughout the mall’s parking lot, onlookers stood atop the parking structure near Nordstrom and took photos and videos.

Once the fire had stopped and crews dried up, all evacuations were lifted by late afternoon.

By late afternoon, crews working on the Lilac Fire in Bonsall had drawn a containment line around 50 percent of the fire’s footprint. The Pala fire, north of I-15 and SR-76, reached 17 acres and was fully contained. The smallest of the three fires in North County was the 1-acre Riverview Fire in the area of ​​Santa Margarita Drive in Fallbrook.

Staff writers Caleb Lunetta, Phil Diehl and Rob Nikolewski contributed to this report.