SDG&E hosted a Wildfire Safety Fair in Rancho Bernardo on Saturday for residents in North County. Attendees received tips such as how to stock an emergency kit and how to plan an emergency route.
(Ana Ramirez / The San Diego Union-Tribune)
With summer fast approaching, the outlook for peak wildfire season in the greater San Diego area is a bit of mixed bag.
A second consecutive wet winter has led to a bloom of vegetation, which worries firefighting agencies.
“We have high potential for fires because of all that grass,” said Cal Fire Capt. Brent Pascua. “When that vegetation starts to dry out, it turns brown and it becomes fuel for wildfires” as the temperatures rise in the coming weeks and months.
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On the other hand, the accumulated moisture from the past winter has allowed bushes and brush to retain a greater degree of moisture, which makes them more resistant to fire — at least for now.
“Ultimately what’s going to end up happening is our region will have plenty of grass fires over the next month or two but it won’t probably be until later in the summer that we start really drying out the brush,” said Brian D’Agostino, meteorologist and vice president of wildfire and climate science at San Diego Gas & Electric.
He predicted “below-normal potential for large fires right now, but then it starts transitioning to above-normal by the time we get to September and October.”
D’Agostino and Pascua attended a Wildfire Safety Fair that SDG&E hosted in Rancho Bernardo on Saturday. The event offered North County residents safety tips, emergency kits, resource materials and an opportunity to talk to fire, utility and emergency crews.
SDG&E hosted a Wildfire Safety Fair in Rancho Bernardo on Saturday for residents in North County. Attendees received tips such as how to stock an emergency kit and how to plan an emergency route.
(Ana Ramirez/The San Diego Union-Tribune)
Fire officials say one of the most important things homeowners should do is create “defensible spaces” around their houses. A buffer of about 100 feet between structures and grass, trees and shrubs can protect homes from catching fire due to flames, embers and even radiant heat.
“Make sure there’s no combustibles right up against your home,” Pascua said. “Look for that dead and dying brush that you can remove. Make sure your rain gutters are clean and clear. Make sure there’s nothing near the chimney and nothing near your roof.”
For some attendees Saturday, the threat of wildfire is no abstract matter.
In 2007, Bill Stroman was forced to evacuate his home in Rancho Peñasquitos during the Witch Creek, Guejito and Rice wildfires that destroyed more than 1,300 homes, killed two people, injured 40 firefighters and forced more than 10,000 to seek shelter at Qualcomm Stadium. One of the fires was caused by a tree limb that fell onto an SDG&E line during high winds.
“You’re watching ashes the size of a large can going downwind and when you’ve got all this tall grass, it ignites immediately,” the 75-year-old who now lives in Rancho Bernardo said. “You can have the attitude, ‘Oh, I don’t have to worry,’ but you really do.”
Since the deadly 2007 fires, SDG&E has spent about $5 billion in ratepayer money on programs to fight and prevent wildfires.
Some 222 weather stations measure wind speed, temperatures and humidity every 10 minutes. In areas at most risk for wildfires, the utility has placed about 45 percent of its infrastructure underground. About 70 miles were placed below ground last year, and about 1,500 miles will go underground through 2031.
SDG&E has employed an unconventional method to help reduce the chances of wildfire ignition.
For the last three years, the utility has used a stable of about 600 goats — four herds of 150 each — to graze the non-native brush that grows along the corridors of transmission towers that carry electricity.
“They nibble it down, they digest the seeds,” said Bill Click, land services project manager at SDG&E. “Goats have four stomachs so when they digest the seed, the seed is void — it’s no good anymore. That cuts down the density (of the vegetation) the following season.”
A herd of goats that eat vegetation to help reduce the risk of wildfire were on display at a Wildfire Safety Fair hosted by SDG&E in Rancho Bernardo on Saturday.
(Ana Ramirez/The San Diego Union-Tribune)
Click estimated 150 goats can clear out 10 acres of scrub brush in 10 days to two weeks.
“Goats are a kinder, gentler way to do brush control,” he said.
When extremely dry conditions parch the ground and Santa Ana winds blow through Southern California, investor-owned utilities such as SDG&E sometimes cut off circuits in defined areas to reduce the risk of a power line falling and igniting a wildfire. Called Public Safety Power Shutoffs, the practice disproportionately affects customers in rural and backcountry areas where blustery conditions are common.
SDG&E instituted five Public Safety Power Shutoffs in 2018 and five in 2020. But the numbers dropped to one in 2021 and none in 2022 and 2023.
Two straight wet winters have helped reduce the risk of wildfires in the region, but “the last two years have been anomalies and we cannot let that give us a false sense of security,” said D’Agostino, who heads a team of six meteorologists at SDG&E that monitor more than 130 cameras that stream views of high-fire risk areas.
Pascua agreed.
“There is a concern that having these two mild seasons might get homeowners kind of complacent,” he said. “But we still have all that fuel out in the hills. We still have plenty of fuel in and (within) neighborhoods and we need to be smart and careful about that.”
Two blazes recently broke out in Northern California: the Corral Fire that burned 14,168 acres near the Livermore-Tracy area and the Crystal Fire in Napa Valley that injured four firefighters.
SDG&E will host two more Wildfire Safety Fairs this year:
- July 13 in Alpine at the Joan MacQueen Middle School, 2001 Tavern Road, from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. and
- Aug. 24 in Valley Center at Bates Nut Farm, 15954 Woods Valley Road, also from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.
Admission is free for both events.
