Nearly a month after a fire burned 40 acres and destroyed one home near San Diego State University, community members still have questions.
At a forum Thursday night, some asked whether palm tree and brush removal could have helped prevent the fire. San Diego Fire-Rescue officials said private ownership of the land limits what they can do.
"Most of the area and acreage that burned, that we had on this fire, was privately owned. It wasn’t city of San Diego," said San Diego Fire-Rescue assistant chief Dan Eddy. "For us to go in there and clear that property out — would you like us to come in and knock down all your trees in your backyard? We can't. There's a process.”
Since July 2021, state law has required property sellers in high fire risk zones to get their defensible space inspected. That’s generally a 100-foot radius around a structure.
"Our scope and the laws that we enforce are 100 feet," assistant fire marshal Daniel Hypes said. "When you're down at the bottom of the canyon, there's no structures. We don't really have that authority to abate something if it's not within that defensible space area."
One attendee asked how traffic control in the area during the evacuation could have been improved.
San Diego Police Department Lieutenant Chris Sharp said Montezuma Road was a "parking lot," both for people trying to leave the area and the officers trying to enter it. Police response to a shooting on the San Diego State campus that same afternoon added to the congestion.
"Our main concern was not traffic control," Sharp said.
San Diego City Council President Sean Elo-Rivera praised Hardy Elementary School staff for their work to evacuate students to the Viejas Arena.
"I watched them stay with every single child until every single child was picked up, and maintain their calm with the fire going on and then an active shooting situation," he said. "It was handled with as much love and care as I could possibly imagine.”
Fire officials said preventing fires works best when the whole community participates. They recommend planting fire-resistant plants, removing dead or dying vegetation and trimming any tree branches that touch structures.
The cause of last month’s fire is still under investigation.
