SAN DIEGO (CBS 8) - All trails at Mission Trails Regional Park, except for Cowles Mountain, were closed Monday until further notice due to a Father's Day brush fire that scorched more than 100 acres in the 5,800-acre park.
The closure was ordered at the request of the San Diego Fire-Rescue Department, which planned to watch for hot spots and conclude its mop-up activities, according to Mission Trails Regional Park Foundation's website, mtrp.org.
Fire broke out around 4:30 p.m. Sunday along the eastbound lanes of State Route 52, east of Santo Road in Tierrasanta.
Two of the highway's eastbound lanes was blocked and a SigAlert was issued, according to the CHP.
Traffic was backed up for miles as authorities also called for the closure of the connector from Santo Road to eastbound 52.
"We responded with a number of engines initially and very quickly upgraded that so within a few minutes, we had close to 200 personnel here," said San Diego Fire-Rescue spokesman Maurice Luque.
The fire burned at least a 110 acres, and created a lot of smoke, forcing authorities to get visitors out of Mission Trails park.
"As a precaution, Mission Trails Park was evacuated - about an hour and a half into the incident... Merely as a precaution - that's to get any hikers or anyone walking in the area out of the area to be safe," said Luque.
The flames never threatened any structures but they moved quickly without wind, which is disconcerting to firefighters.
This was a fuel driven fire, dry brush, letting the flames run. Not something we usually see in June when gloom keeps to brush too wet to burn.
"We're seeing the kind of fire behavior now - that we usually see in August, September, October, things are dried out quite a bit - as we all know - so the fire behavior is quite different - it's speeded up the clock in terms of fire dangers."
The cause of the blaze is under investigation.