Fire Damages 5 Expensive Homes Near San Diego

SAN DIEGO —  Whipped by stiff coastal winds, a brush fire roared out of a canyon and into an exclusive enclave of houses northeast of San Diego Monday afternoon, damaged five expensive homes and remained out of control Monday night, authorities said.

The fast-moving fire scorched 2,480 acres, consumed three cars, threatened hundreds of homes and forced the evacuation of 200 to 300 people and dozens of horses and other animals near and in Del Dios, a small unincorporated community about 30 miles northeast of downtown San Diego, officials said.

No one was killed, and the sole injury was to a 25-year-old firefighter who hurt a knee, officials said.

California Department of Forestry spokesman Bob Paul said Monday night that the fire was “shooting-related” but did not elaborate. Another forestry department spokesman, Paul Smith, said the fire may have been started by errant target shooting.

Firefighters expect to have the fire contained by 6 a.m. today and to have it controlled by tonight, Smith said.

More than 600 firefighters on the ground, along with five air tankers and six helicopters, battled the blaze Monday as it moved northward from the Mt. Israel area and the Lake Hodges Reservoir toward the more populated hamlet of Del Dios, forestry Division Chief Bill Clayton said.

But it appeared unlikely late Monday night that the fire would jump Del Dios Highway, Route 6, and reach the hamlet.

“We took all our photo albums, our children’s school records, my wife’s jewelry, some original paintings, things we can’t replace,” said Scott Miller, a resident of the Mt. Israel area west of Del Dios, which took the brunt of the fire. “When we left there was fire on both sides of the road.”

Miller, 48, an accountant who works out of his home on Mt. Israel Road, said he had to dash out of his family’s house--a tile-roofed, wood-and-adobe structure filled with antiques--as the fast-moving fire approached from two directions.

“It was just an inferno when it came down the hill,” he said.

Later, he was allowed back--and found the house still smoldering, part of a library gone, a bathroom burned and smoke damage in the kitchen and living room.

But he said, “I told my daughter as we were watching it, ‘It’s OK. We’re safe.’ ”

All afternoon, fire helicopters darted down to Lake Hodges to fill their buckets with water, then swooped back to a ridgeline half a mile to the west to try to douse the flames.

Firefighters on the ground, meanwhile, found little relief from the heat away from the fire itself. Crews in the canyons endured temperatures that already had reached 106 away from the fire, forestry department spokeswoman Audrey Hagen said.

Ground crews and homeowners were surprised Monday afternoon by the speed with which the fire destroyed heavy brush in the canyons as it moved toward the large, expensive homes.

“The fire is what we call ‘got away.’ The winds are erratic and the fire is in a stage where it creates its own wind,” forestry Capt. Jim Van Meter said.

The fire was so fast it threatened to overtake news crews reporting on the blaze.

One photographer had to climb aboard a firetruck to escape the flames. Flames scorched another photographer’s car as he drove to safety.

Despite the speed of the blaze, fire crews reported that they also encountered conditions that were all too common.

“Typical Southern California stuff: poor access, steep canyons and homes without proper (brush) clearance,” Smith said.

The fire began about noon in an area east of Rancho Santa Fe near Via de las Flores, a lonely backcountry road.

By 3 p.m., it had seared more than 800 acres and the five homes--each 5,000 to 10,000 square feet, according to the Forestry Department--in the Mt. Israel area.

Damage to the five homes was primarily to roofs and attics, Clayton said.

Robert Mitchell, a battalion chief with the Encinitas Fire Department, led one of the first fire crews up Mt. Israel Road.

“The fire was moving so fast it moved over these houses without burning them,” Mitchell said. “When it burned back, it got to some of them. It’s by the grace of God that they didn’t burn the first time. These are very, very lucky people.”

One of the lucky ones was Al Greco.

“It burned all around my house, right up to our pool,” Greco said. “But the house didn’t burn. We have the area around it cleared of brush.”

San Diego Sheriff’s Sgt. Harry Smith said 200 to 300 people were evacuated from their homes in the canyons and Del Dios. Officials set up an evacuation center at the Del Dios Middle School.

Times staff writers John Cramer, John M. Glionna, Tom Gorman, Richard A. Oppel Jr. and Ray Tessler contributed to this story.