Neighbors Help Douse Brush Fire in Canyon

Fast-thinking neighbors, using water from swimming pools and garden hoses, helped firefighters douse a brush fire Sunday that scorched the back fences of several homes bordering a Tierrasanta canyon and threatened about a dozen other houses.

The blaze, which broke out about 2:30 p.m., charred about 25 acres as it moved up a canyon in the 10600 block of Gabacho Drive, said Ida Cheney, a spokeswoman for the San Diego Fire Department.

Chris Kelly, 19, a Gabacho Drive resident, said he and a friend, Tim Jonas, 21, had just returned from the beach when they heard a neighbor run by yelling, “Fire.”

“We looked over across the street behind the neighbor’s fence and we saw smoke,” Kelly said. “We ran over there, thinking their roof was on fire, but then we saw it coming up the canyon, spreading super fast.”

Winds Hampered Effort

He said the winds generated by the flames made it difficult to try to fight the fire, which spread rapidly east toward several houses.

“We saw this little Spanish lady (Margarita Richards) that lived down the street, and started helping her because that’s where it (the fire) was the worst,” he said. “For some reason she had all these buckets out by her swimming pool. We grabbed them and started scooping water out of the pool and throwing it over the fence.”

Jonas said about 20 neighbors were working to put out the blaze, from people up on rooftops wetting them down to people down in the canyon extinguishing flames.

“It was like the whole neighborhood knew what to do,” Jonas said. “There were people getting more hoses from their gardens so we could extend the fire hoses. Me and another guy were down in the canyon watering the brush down. Some people weren’t home so we just went and grabbed their hoses and jumped on their roofs to wet them down.”

Reached Fences

The flames scorched the back fences of five or six houses, according to Jonas, but did not leap into people’s yards.

The blaze was believed to have started on the jogging trail along the base of the canyon, according to Cheney. About 75 firefighters helped fight the fire, which was under control by 3:15 p.m. and contained by 5:30 p.m.