Fierce Winds Fan Fire; Thousands Flee : Santa Ana: Homes, schools and businesses were evacuated as winds up to 60 m.p.h. pushed a brush fire across 1,200 acres in the Rancho Penasquitos area.

A fast-moving brush fire, pushed by Santa Ana winds estimated between 50 and 60 m.p.h., burned more than 1,200 acres Tuesday and sent thousands of people fleeing from homes, schools and businesses.

It was the county’s most serious fire of the day, but only one of several. A 170-acre brush fire swept over an area near Ramona, and late Tuesday night, firefighters from San Diego and the California Department of Forestry rushed to Santee to help units from that city put out a blaze near the corner of Magnolia Avenue and El Nopal.

At 11:12 a.m. Tuesday, units from the San Diego Fire Department were summoned to Emden Road and Black Mountain Road in Rancho Penasquitos, where fire broke out in a dense, dry canyon. With winds blowing the fire almost due west, it roared through McGonigle Canyon near the new North City West development on the border between San Diego and Del Mar.

The fire was 90% contained at 9:10 p.m. Tuesday, and was expected to be under control this morning, said John McDonald, spokesman for the San Diego Fire Department. McDonald said fire officials have no idea what caused the blaze.

The fire caused no deaths or injuries but resulted in hundreds of thousands of dollars in property damage. McDonald said it wiped out a pair of small mobile homes in the Shaw Valley area near Shaw Ridge Road, between Del Mar and Rancho Penasquitos, and flushed out a migrant labor camp, with flames engulfing the tents and sending workers rushing for safe ground.

Cardina Elementary, Torrey Pines High School, Del Mar Pines Elementary and Solana Highlands Elementary were all evacuated. Firefighters described the blaze as one of the fastest-moving fires Santa Anas are capable of fanning, one that persistently overcame efforts to contain it throughout the day.

“Smoke was all over our school, in the air, everywhere,” said Nancy McGrath, a senior at Torrey Pines High School, where 1,900 students were sent home at 12:45 p.m. “The smoke filled the whole sky. It was an ugly mixture of black and orange. The smell was incredibly strong.”

Some of the worst damage was suffered by the Evergreen Nursery, 7150 Black Mountain Road, just east of Carmel Valley Road. Manager Charles Magana said the 80-acre nursery lost a 20,000-square-foot greenhouse, two utility sheds, a canning shed and a potting shed. A spokesman for the company labeled the loss at between $150,000 and $160,000.

“Right now, there’s charred plastic all over the ground, and it’s so smokey, I can barely breathe,” Magana said. “We’re trying to keep water on a diesel tank so it won’t explode. It’s a tank we use for our delivery vehicles, and at the moment, it’s got us concerned more than anything.”

By nightfall, 10 strike teams, six air tankers, four helicopters, 350 firefighters and 10 hand crews had been summoned to the area, said Mary Jean Swartzwelder, spokeswoman for the San Diego Fire Department. Swartzwelder said units from as far away as San Marcos and Riverside were assisting.

A spokesman for the California Highway Patrol said: “Interstate 5 is open, but then, it was never closed. We’ve only answered that question 8 million times today. How do these things get started?”

Swartzwelder said most of the homes along Shaw Ridge Road had been evacuated by 2:30 p.m. A man who identified himself as Jerry left this message on his answering machine in the 5100 block of Shaw Ridge Road: “It’s 2:23 on Tuesday. We’re evacuating our house right now because of the Carmel Valley fire. It’s about a mile and a half due east of us. There’s a ton of police and fire trucks up here.”

At 2:45 p.m., the fire reached a small rural area known as Hollywood and Vine in Shaw Valley, near the Los Penasquitos Canyon Preserve. Fifteen minutes later, flames had swallowed up the migrant camp several hundred yards to the west, sending workers, with belongings thrown hastily on their backs, fleeing for safe ground.

A firefighting strike team led by Cliff Hunter of the San Marcos Fire Department worked to control the fire near the migrant camp, near the game preserve. Hunter said late Tuesday that he felt confident of getting the fire under control, unless spotting--flames jumping unpredictably to new locations--flared up.

He said he saw a deer emerge from an area of brush still red from the blaze. With the air full of grit and cinders, the deer tiptoed through a cloud of smoke and then sprinted “the wrong way,” down into the valley, Hunter said, back into an area where the fire still raged.

Stan Perry, a firefighter from the Camp Pendleton Fire Department, said the blaze was “real fast,” swept along by a strong, hot wind and aided by dry conditions. Weekend rains failed to slow the blaze, he said.

Horse owners and animal control officers led most of the horses in the area to safety, but were unable to control one horse, which they were forced to leave behind.

In the Shaw Valley area near the end of Shaw Ridge Road, Dr. Daniel Brumfield was working frantically to remove 40 horses from his 8-acre ranch. All were relocated Tuesday night in safe quarters at the Del Mar Racetrack.

“We’re actually in pretty good shape, except for the cinders, which are everywhere,” Brumfield said.

Remington Jackson, 60, and wife Nona Jackson, 56, live in the Hollywood and Vine area not far from Brumfield’s farm. The Jacksons’ was among scores of homes evacuated.

“I took my toothbrush and my birth certificate and my marriage license,” Remington Jackson said. “What else are we going to move out?”

The fire department set up an evacuation center at Earl Warren Junior High School in Solana Beach. Late Tuesday evening, officials were not allowing residents of the area to return to their homes.

A fire covering 170 acres near the Mesa Grande Indian Reservation on Mesa Grande Road, just west of California 79, had been contained by Tuesday night, said Audrey Hagen, spokeswoman for the California Department of Forestry.

Hagen said 250 firefighters from the Forestry Department remained there through the night. She said two CDF firefighters were taken to Palomar Hospital Tuesday night, where they were treated for first-degree burns to the face and released.

In Santee, 75 acres were burning at the east end of Fanita Parkway near the Santee Recreational Lakes late Tuesday night. The Santee fire had accounted for no injuries and no structural damage by late Tuesday, said Kevin Dorst, a spokesman for the El Cajon Fire Department.

Times staff writer Joe McGarvey contributed to this story.