As flames neared homes along Oak Springs Drive in the San Diego Country Estates on Wednesday, a cleared section of land on the western edge of the development played a crucial role in the firefight. The empty space cut off fuel for the flames and helped slow the fire — enough to help firefighters save threatened homes.
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“It was vegetation that was already cut back. I would call it a fuel break around the community,” said Cal Fire Capt. Mike Cornette.
The 347-acre Creelman fire threatened homes in the master-planned community in the Ramona area, which abuts open land and dense vegetation. The community has been hit with fire before, with homes being lost in the Cedar fire in 2003 and the Witch Creek fire of 2007.
Cornette said the space, which is near a county park and which residents say was cleared by a homeowners’ association, “very well helped us in the firefight.”
The area is considered wildland-urban interface, a zone where development borders undeveloped vegetation. Fire officials say those areas present a high fire risk because brush is highly flammable and helps wildfires grow.
On Wednesday, even though the flames were so tall they could be seen from Mount Woodson, nearly 10 miles away, Cornette said the fuel break near Oak Springs Drive gave firefighters defensible space where they could set up and fight the approaching fire.
The 10-foot-wide swath of vacant land winds its way behind the homes on the west side of San Diego Country Estates — a community of about 3,500 homes — and rests at the base of a handful of canyons. On Thursday, the formerly green hills and trees had transformed into charred sticks, wilted palm trees and what firefighters call “moonscape,” an area of topsoil that is stripped bare and blackened.
Though the fences and some of the backyards were damaged, the homes appeared largely defended by the fire break.
Oak Springs Drive resident Harvey Mendiola, whose home butts up against the fire break, said he has spent the last 10 years building an island paradise in his backyard, complete with a gazebo, bar, hand-carved tiki sculptures he makes himself and multiple palapas, or open-sided structures with thatched roofs made of dried palm leaves.
On Wednesday, the tropical paradise was razed.
“It came over the hill, and it felt like 100 guys were on the ridge blowing flamethrowers down,” he said. “You didn’t even have 15 minutes to grab your stuff. Not even 10.”
While grateful that his home was spared, and that some of his hand-carved artwork was left unscathed, Mendiola said he was most sad about the fire destroying a nest that a wild dove had built in his gazebo.
Photos: Creelman fire aftermath
On Thursday, a lone dove was flying in circles, just over the wreckage.
Mendiola’s next-door neighbors up the hill from him lost their art studio, the unit behind their home gutted by the fire, he said. And his neighbor on the other side, Marc Ethington, was evacuating as the flames began carving their way down the hill.
Ethington then came home Thursday morning to find his trailer was burned black on one side and his fence licked by flames, but the vast majority of his property, which sits directly adjacent to the cleared dirt path behind the community, was largely fine.
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“It’s really all just material stuff, you can buy,” Ethington said, referencing the items the fire damaged. “But if I lose the house? That would’ve been the one, because you work so hard for that, right?”
Mendiola said he was trying to save his gazebo and palapas by wetting them with a garden hose when a firefighter walked up and told him he had to leave right then. Waiting any longer may have proved fatal.
“He said: ‘You don’t have time. You need to get into your car, just with what you got on, get your important things … It’s your life or this.’”
Residents say they were well aware of fire risks after having seen other blazes threaten their neighborhood.
Cornette said the Ramona community has a “really active” Fire Safe Council that is educating residents on defensive space and disaster preparedness. Another program can provide grants for brush clearing and other projects.
“We are very fortunate to have active volunteers and people dedicated to these programs. And it is proving its worth,” he said.
Some ornamental vegetation near homes caught fire Wednesday, which could easily have spread to the homes by sending embers into eaves.
Cornette said there’s a push for homeowners to provide a 5-foot barrier around their homes, clearing away vegetation and other combustible material, to lessen the fire danger. That effort is known as creating a non-combustible “Zone Zero” buffer zone.
State law calls for existing home and property owners to meet Zone Zero guidelines by February in many cities, including San Diego, while new construction in areas deemed in very high fire severity zones is supposed to be following the new rules.
Cornette said homeowners can take many small steps to try to prevent fires from spreading to their homes, including clearing leaves from their roofs, cleaning gutters and removing combustible materials within that 5-foot barrier. Bigger projects include replacing wooden fences with metal ones, he said.
Mendiola said he plans to rebuild his backyard, but this time with less hand-carved wood and more metal.
He also sees lessons in Wednesday’s near-miss.
He said that once he and his neighbors have had a chance to repair their properties and clear debris from their yards, he’s going to ask them to come together to expand the 10-feet-wide lane behind their homes. When the time comes, he’d also like to volunteer and see if his neighbors would join him for brush clearance in the small valleys behind their homes.
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