Wildfire in San Diego's Otay Mountain area explodes to 5,000 acres, prompting evacuation orders

Teri Figueroa and Blake Nelson, The San Diego Union-Tribune on Jan 24, 2025

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SAN DIEGO — A wildfire in the hills near the U.S.-Mexico border exploded early Friday morning over thousands of acres, prompting evacuation orders throughout the Otay Wilderness Area and triggering school closures as well as likely power shutoffs for tens of thousands of people.

The Border 2 fire has so far largely moved north and the evacuation area now extends a little beyond Otay Lakes Road. Many neighborhoods to the west of Lower Otay Reservoir, however, are on notice to leave if the flames change direction.

The nearly 700 firefighters on scene have contained only about a tenth of the blaze, which now covers more than 5,300 acres, yet leaders said winds recently slowed. “The fire activity has significantly decreased over the last few hours,” Cal Fire Capt. Robert Johnson said Friday morning.

The evacuation area stretches from around the reservoir in the west to state Route 94 and Dulzura in the east. The Otay Open Space Preserve, the Olympic Training Center and the Pio Pico Campground were included.

Roy Carmichael, a 66-year-old who lives at the campground in an RV, said he first spotted an orange glow atop Otay Mountain on Thursday night.

“We thought everything was going to be OK,” he said. “But the wind direction changed.” He fled the area around 2 a.m. and was one of dozens who parked Friday at the Regal Edwards Rancho San Diego movie theater, one of two places for those who’ve been displaced.

Among the group was Carmichael’s 80-year-old neighbor. He hadn’t been able to hook up his trailer to an SUV in time, and Carmichael said they were worried the RV might be lost if the campsite burns.

A number of streets were additionally closed, including State Route 94 starting at Otay Lakes Road. Parts of Alta Road and Wueste Road were similarly affected.

Plumes of smoke were visible as far as Del Mar.

Concerns about the air quality led to the shuttering of a number of schools Friday, from Eastlake High to Arroyo Vista Charter. Eight institutions from the Chula Vista Elementary School District closed their doors. The same went for schools in the Dehesa, Mountain Empire Unified and Warner Unified districts, according to the San Diego County Office of Education.

Southwestern College moved to remote learning Friday.

Overnight, as many as 20,000 San Diego Gas & Electric customers countywide, most of whom were in rural and backcountry communities, had their power shut off in an effort to prevent high winds from knocking over power lines and sparking more fires.

Cal Fire first posted about the blaze mid-afternoon Thursday, saying on social media that some brush had ignited along the Otay Mountain Truck Trail. Soon after, the San Diego County Air Pollution Control District warned residents in the southwestern part of the county about smoke.

Johnson, the Cal Fire captain, said about 200 firefighters were initially deployed. That total more than tripled when blaze spread out in multiple directions overnight. Crews were seeing “some extreme fire behavior,” Johnson said shortly after 4 a.m.

Although the speed has since slowed, the captain remained especially concerned about wind blowing embers to other parts of the county.

The region continues to suffer from a lack of rain, low humidity and fast-moving Santa Ana winds, setting the stage for small fires to quickly grow. The National Weather Service put San Diego valleys and mountains under a red-flag warning — meaning the conditions were perfect for a fire — until at least 10 a.m. Friday.

Winds from the east were recently blowing at nearly 30 miles per hour around Otay Mountain and the relative humidity was just 2 percent. Although a storm may be coming, rain isn’t likely to arrive until the weekend. Forecasters said the weather will cool Saturday while scattered showers might reach the fire by Sunday.

Cal Fire had assigned 10 helicopters to the blaze as of Friday morning and Johnson said crews were “making good progress.”

Lin Green, another residents of the Pio Pico Campground, hadn’t been sure that she had enough gas in her RV to make it to the evacuation point.

“I had paid all my bills and thought, ‘Well, I don’t really need gas until the 31st,’” she said. After the order to leave came in, she thought about taking only a car and abandoning the RV. “But this is home,” she added, her RV safely parked near the theater. “We just couldn’t leave it.”

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(San Diego Union-Tribune staff writers Tammy Murga, Rob Nikolewski and Gary Robbins contributed to this report.)

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