Fire in Canyon Was a Close Call

A three-alarm fire roared through a City Heights canyon Wednesday afternoon, racing up steep slopes strewn with dense brush and sending smoke billowing into several dozen homes, but firefighters put out the blaze before any homes were burned.

Dense smoke from the fire, whipped by Santa Ana winds, prompted authorities to close a portion of northbound Interstate 805, just west of the canyon, for about 45 minutes. Two dozen people were evacuated from their homes in the 3900 block of Manzanita Drive, on the canyon’s north side.

No one was badly hurt. One person complained of smoke inhalation, another of minor burns, officials said. Names of the two people were not available, since neither was hurt enough to go to the hospital, officials said.

Investigators said the fire was deliberately set, probably by children or teens playing in the canyon on the school holiday. “It was definitely caused,” Battalion Chief J.J. Hunter told a television interviewer. “It didn’t just happen.”

It remained unclear late Wednesday who was responsible. “We interviewed a couple people at the scene but there’s nothing we can lay anything on,” said Jerry Swartfager, an investigator with the Metro Arson Strike Team.

The blaze broke out at 2:06 p.m. Wednesday, sparking memories of the 1985 Normal Heights fire, San Diego’s most destructive blaze. The 1985 fire roared out of a canyon and raged for eight hours on the flat heights above, just a few miles north of Manzanita Drive--destroying 64 homes and damaging 20 others.

Within minutes Wednesday, the fire was pouring thick black smoke into the sky. The smoke was visible from a California Department of Forestry lookout on Los Pinos Mountain, in the East County a few miles northwest of Lake Morena.

San Diego police evacuated people and pets from their homes and apartments along Manzanita Drive. At 2:45 p.m., the California Highway Patrol closed northbound 805 and the two highway off-ramps bracketing the canyon, ramps to Home Avenue and to northbound California 15.

“We had big problems with people parking on the freeway to watch the burn,” a CHP dispatcher said.

San Diego firefighters rushed nine engines, six truck companies and a rescue rig to the canyon. At 3:11 p.m., officials declared the blaze contained.

It was controlled about an hour later. Traffic on Interstate 805 was back to normal by 3:50 p.m., the CHP said.