Authorities issued evacuation orders and warnings to nearby areas early Friday morning for a wildfire in the Otay Wilderness Area that exploded to 4,250 acres in rugged terrain overnight. Crews were able to get 10 percent of it contained.
The evacuation area for the Border 2 fire is a large swath stretching north of Otay Lakes Road, east to state Route 94 and Dulzura, and west to Lower Otay Lake. It includes the Otay Open Space Preserve.
State Route 94 was closed at Otay Lakes Road early Friday morning. Road closures include Alta Road near Otay Mesa Road and Otay Lakes Road, Wueste Road to Pio Pico Campground, which is under an evacuation order.
The evacuation warning area includes neighborhoods west of the lake and the Olympic Training Center.
Safety and air quality concerns from the fire led Chula Vista Elementary School District to close the following schools on Friday: Salt Creek, Camarena, Wolf Canyon, Olympic View, Liberty, Eastlake, Marshall and Arroyo Vista. All other schools in that district will remain open.
Oher schools to be closed Friday include Eastlake High, Eastlake Middle, Olympian High, East Hills Academy, High Tech High Chula Vista and Arroyo Vista Charter School.
San Diego County Office of Education said Friday that schools in Dehesa, Mountain Empire Unified and Warner Unified school districts will also be closed on Friday.
Sheriff’s officials said a temporary evacuation point is at Regal Edwards Cinemas Rancho San Diego, located at 2951 Jamacha Road in El Cajon. Chula Vista police said residents south and west of the lake can go to Southwestern College as an evacuation site, at 900 Otay Lakes Road in Chula Vista.
Southwestern College moved to remote learning Friday.
Crews were seeing “some extreme fire behavior,” Cal Fire Capt. Robert Johnson said shortly after 4 a.m.
“The main fire spread they are concerned about is generally spreading in a northern direction,” he said, noting that the blaze was also fingering out in different directions. At that time of the morning, the fire was moving at a “moderate rate of speed,” and was “spotting,” meaning the wind was blowing embers from the fire, and those can ignite. Johnson said the wind was “breezy” and temperatures were cooler than in recent days.
A few hours later, Johnson said the winds were calm and the fire was still moving at a moderate rate of speed.
“The fire activity has significantly decreased over the last few hours,” he said.
The plume of smoke from the fire was visible as far as Del Mar early Friday.
Santa Ana winds have beset the region this week, with humidity in the single digits even in coastal areas. There has also been very little rain since July 1, leaving the brush dry and brittle. According to the National Weather Service, San Diego valleys and mountains are under a red-flag warning — meaning critical fire weather conditions — until 10 a.m. today.
Overnight, several thousand San Diego Gas & Electric customers living mostly in rural and backcountry communities had their power shut off in an effort to prevent high winds from causing power lines to fall and potentially spark a wildfire.
Santa Ana winds continued to cause problems early Friday morning. Winds out of the east were gusting nearly 30 mph at Otay Mountain and the relative humidity was 2%. And a storm capable of bringing rain to the area won’t arrive until the weekend.
Approaching storm could reduce wildfire threat across San Diego County this weekend
Friday is expected to reach about 75 degrees in the area where the fire is burning. Forecasters said the weather will cool on Saturday, and scattered showers might reach the fire area by Sunday.
Johnson said there were roughly 200 firefighters at the scene overnight — a number that jumped to nearly 700 firefighters when Cal Fire issued an updated status report Friday morning.
As of shortly after 6 a.m., crews had drawn a containment line around 10 percent of the fire’s footprint. Johnson said bulldozer and hand crews were cutting line around a slice of the fire were “making good progress.”
Cal Fire also had two helicopters making nighttime water drops, and they have scheduled fixed-wing aircraft to make drops after sunrise. By Friday morning, the agency had 10 helicopters assigned to the fire.
The agency first posted about the fire just after 2:20 p.m. Thursday, saying on social media it was a vegetation fire on Otay Mountain Truck Trail within the Otay Wilderness Area.
Not long after the fire started, smoke prompted the San Diego County Air Pollution Control District to issue a smoke advisory for the southwestern part of the county to include Otay Mesa and surrounding areas
For a map with updated emergency evacuation information visit: OES Emergency Map
Staff writer Gary Robbins contributed to this report.
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