SAN DIEGO — Fire crews mopped up Thursday afternoon after a brush fire broke out in University City, according to the San Diego Fire-Rescue Department. Shortly after they had finished, another fire broke out in the same area but was quickly contained.
The original fire was reported around 1:30 p.m. near the 4100 block of Porte de Merano close to Regents Road in Rose Canyon. The second fire flared up nearby after 5 p.m. but the forward rate of spread was stopped a short time later.
"Living in California these days, we are always concerned about wildfires," said Jack Birnbaum who lives in the area. "Anybody who lives anywhere close to a canyon has that concern."
The first fire burned near train tracks and tweets from North County Transit District indicated that Coaster service from Sorrento Valley to Old Town was temporarily stopped.
Fire crews worked on both fires from the ground and the air and were able to get a quick handle on each one.
"[We] got a very, very robust response to this. We were able to hit it really hard," said SDFD Fire Chief Kelly Zombro. "It’s a little difficult. Unfortunately, there is no easy access to it from the south side so we had to make our accesses to it from the north side."
Crew moved a water hose underneath the train tracks to get the trains back up and running.
The fire earlier in the day burned two-thirds of an acre of mostly grass and some brush.
With the recent intense heat, the possibility for a large fire starts to increase, according to firefighters.
"We are smack dab in the middle of summer, the temperatures are rising, the humidities are dropping... and wildfires are becoming a bigger concern as we move forward into the year," said Cal Fire Public Information Officer Issac Sanchez.
There were no injuries or property damage in either fire.
