March 24, 2014 (Spring Valley) - A new, primary Incident Command Vehicle is now in service within the San Miguel Fire District, thanks to an award from Barona and Sycuan Casinos. The $45,000 grant covered 68 % of the total vehicle cost. That cost included Required Code 3 Equipment, VHF & 800mgz Radios and Installation. The total cost of the Command Vehicle was $65,000. The remainder of the cost came from the District’s Vehicle Replacement fund.

Photo: View from Lyons Peak, looking east; WREN camera courtesy USCD

Update 3:35 p.m.:  The fire is north of 8 and is now estimated between 75-100 acres and is 5% containued; evacuations have been lifted.  The  I-8 freeway is open; a hard closure is still in effect on Sunrise and Old 80 and Kitchen Creek area. SDG&E has shut  power lines down due to fire burning close to the lines, so Mt. Laguna has no power right now. Powerlink is no longer considered threatened, per Wende Cornelius, USFS.

Update 2:55 p.m.:  "We are evacuating Kitchen Creek and Cibbetts Flat in Cleveland National Forest," Wende Cornelius with CNF has informed ECM. Hikers and campers in the area are urged to leave. The fire is now 100 acres and due to high winds, some fixed wing aircraft have been temporarily grounded though helicopters continue doing water drops.

Sunrise Powerlink could be threatened, Cornelius stated, so be prepaerd for possible power outages.  SDG&E is en route. 

March 8,2014 (San Diego’s East County) – A brush fire on Sunrise Highway and Old Highway 80 has charred over 75 acres, IPN reports and aerial resources are on the scene, with a strike team positioningi in Pine Valley. Interstate is shut down from the Sunrise Highway exit to Buckman Springs, CHP reports. There is also a closure at Highway 79 just south of Lodge.

The fire is in the Cleveland National Forest and has been named the Gun Fire, due to its proximity to a shooting range.  As of 2 p.m. there is a large header of smoke visible across East County.

IPN reported an earlier fire at State Routes 944 and 188 (Tecate Road). Multiple resources were dispatched to the fire which was estimated to have a potential of ten acres per the incident commander.

March 3, 2014 (San Diego): The Fire Safe Council of San Diego County, in partnership with the Resource Conservation District of San Diego County, is offering a free Defensible Space Assistance Program (DSAP) for low income seniors or disabled residents.

County News Service

February 28, 2014 (San Diego) -- A new Sheriff’s Department helicopter could serve double duty, helping both law enforcement and firefighters. The Bell 407 GX helicopter the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department wants to add to its aerial fleet could also support local fire departments with fire suppression efforts.

By Miriam Raftery

February 26, 2014 (San Diego’s East County) – Readers across East County have sent photos and video of a large controlled burn yesterday in Rancho Cuyamaca State Park, voicing outrage over the burning of habitat including mature trees, given than 99% of the pine trees in the park burned during the 2003 Cedar Fire.

Questions have also been raised over why the burn was allowed in windy conditions, why a helicopters was dispatched to use water from Lake Cuyamaca on a controlled burn, and why more notice was not provided to the public and the press that a major controlled burn was underway by State Parks in conjunction with Cal Fire.

By Nadin Abbott

February 5, 2014 (Jamul)—It was standing room only as Director Baldwin called the Rural Fire Protection District meeting to order in Jamul. In question was whether the Rural Fire District should dissolve and join the County Fire Authority. In phase three of the takeover, the County aims to absorb both the Pine Valley Fire District and the Rural Fire Protection District.

If the Rural District dissolves, the money that the County now puts into the District, to the tune of $3.6 million will continue. If the district does not dissolve, those funds will go away, and the district will only have the $1.6 million that it collects from residents. In effect, if the Fire District does not dissolve, it will have to reduce service and will only be able to staff the Jamul and Otay Stations, Director Dale Amato warned. The rest of the stations will have to go dark, or rely on volunteers—and there will be a significant degradation of fire protection service.

View video of groundbreaking

January 27, 2014 (Boulevard)--Drive 60 miles east of San Diego out Interstate 8 and you’ll reach Boulevard, a sparsely populated rural community of about 1,750 people. Your view will encompass manzanita trees and granite boulders, but no shopping malls or gleaming high rises. In fact, you won’t see a lot of newer buildings at all, and you won’t be surprised to learn the town’s fire station is a converted court office.

That last part won’t be true for long though. On Thursday, County Board of Supervisors Chairwoman Dianne Jacob joined County officials and community members to break ground on a new $3.5 million fire station, which will serve a 78-square-mile area.

January 20, 2014 (East County) A full brush response has been dispatched south of Community Building Rd near Dulzura. Fire crews are using Highway 94 to reach the area. According to the Incident Page Network this is a 1 acre brush fire with a slow rate of spread and no current structure threats.

A separate fire at Graves in El Cajon prompted by a vehicle striking a storage facility was upgraded to a second alarm but is now under control.  SDG&E has been dispatched to the scene due to electrical damage. Due to the heavy smoke Fire requested Gillespie close down the landing strip briefly due to visibility issues.

A new fire is burning in Poway at Twin Peaks Road; a helicopter has been requested.

SDG&E now offers critical weather page to look up conditions in your neighborhood

January 11, 2014 (San Diego's East County ) -- A red flag warning for a moderate to strong Santa Ana Wind event along with low humidity is expected Sunday evening through Wednesday afternoon for San Diego County. Wind gusts of up to 50 miles per hour are likely with some isolated gusts of 65 mph on some ridge tops and canyons.

“Though Cal Fire has year round staffing in Southern California, these conditions warrant adding additional resources on for the duration of the red flag conditions that bring an elevated threat of wildfire," said Chief Dale Hutchinson, Cal Fire's Southern Region Chief. Cal Fire has placed additional firefighters on duty to staff extra equipment to augment normal staffing levels in the areas affected.

Cal Fire is asking everyone to be extra cautious during the heightened fire danger period in order to prevent wildfires. One less spark means one less wildfire. Be aware of the following activity restrictions and tips:

January 2, 2014 (San Diego’s East County)--During the past ten years, the U.S. Forest Service’s fleet of firefighting planes has dropped from 44 aircraft to just eight planes.

Now California’s Senator Dianne Feinstein has added language into the Defense Bill that would double the current fleet size to 16 planes – still far short of a decade ago.

Part II in our "Wind Fire" series

By Miriam Raftery

December 17, 2013 (Campo) – Yesterday’s explosion and brush fire sparked by a Gamesa wind turbine owned by Infigen at the Kumeyaay Wind facility in Campo, California has ignited new questions about the safety of wind turbines in this fire-prone region, where several of the worst wildfires in California history have previously scorched hundreds of thousands of acres.

In June, Infigen settled a lawsuit with Gamesa stemming from an earlier catastrophe at the same wind facility in 2009, when an explosive blast resulted in replacement of all 75 wind turbines, as ECM reported in an exclusive report.  But now Boulevard Planning Group Chair Donna Tisdale reveals, “The 75 turbine blades from the 2009 catastrophic failure that you covered are still laying on the ground at the wind farm and are highly flammable.”

December 14, 2013 (San Diego’s East County) – A red flag warning is in effect from noon Saturday through 6 p.m. Sunday due to high fire danger conditions including strong, gusty east/northeast winds, warmer temperatures and low humidity.

Winds of 15 to 30 miles per hour are forecast with gusts up to 65 possible in mountain passes.

Hot items also on the agendas in Boulevard, Lakeside and Lemon Grove this week

By Miriam Raftery

December 1, 2013 (San Diego's East County)--San Diego Supervisors meet on Tuesday and Wednesday, December 3 and 4 at 9 a.m. The hottest item is a public hearing Tuesday on a county proposal to levy fees to recover the actual cost of services provided by the San Diego County Fire Authority including fire plan reviews, inspections and other technical work.  In the past, such services have been provided to individuals and businesses without full cost recovery. 

The Agenda does not state how much the proposed fees would be or how much revenue the county expects to raise.  But coming on the heels of a statewide fire fee that is going up at year’s end,  the proposal is likely to fuel controversy among taxpayers. The item is first on Tuesday’s agenda.  

View December 3 agenda.  View December 4 agenda.

East County Magazine's special report on the Cedar Fire, originally aired on KNSJ, is now online. Listen here:

https://www.eastcountymagazine.org/sites/eastcountymagazine.org/files/au...

Our editor, Miriam Raftery, covered the Cedar Fire back in 2003 for several publications and our own publisher, Mark Hanson, lost his home in Lakeside's Wildcat Canyon. Thus we were able to reconnect with a broad network of contacts to create our special report, which includes some never before told stories and interviews with fire survivors, firefighters and elected officials including Cal Fire Captain Mike Mohler,   Lakeside resident Mark Hanson,  Lakeside Fire Chief Andy Parr,  burn survivor Rudy Reyes,  Supervisor Dianne Jacob, San Diego Councilman Mark Kersey, Santee Councilman Brian Jones, retired Cal Fire Battalion Chief Mark Ostrander, Kathy Kassell, cofounder of the Cedar Fire Rebuild Resource Group, and other eyewitness stories from California’s worst wildfire ever. 

We conclude with reflections on what’s changed since then, as well as a reading from The Fire Outside My Window by Lindra Millers Younger.