The recent Montezuma Fire left many residents with concerns about what happened, as well as a renewed commitment to better prepare themselves, their families, homes and neighborhoods for wildfire.

The fire broke out on Oct. 31, along Montezuma Road, between Fairmount Avenue and Collwood Blvd. The area of the 40 acre fire was lined with hundreds of palm trees, and had long been feared a wildfire catastrophe waiting to happen. Community members say they made repeated Get It Done requests to the City to mitigate the massive accumulation of dead palm fronds, as well as known homeless encampments.

According to Mónica Muñoz, the San Diego Fire Department’s Media Services Manager, the cause is still under investigation, but may have started, “in or very near a homeless encampment.”

To help provide information and answers, leaders of the Alvarado Estates Fire Safe Council and Kensington Fire Safe teamed up to organize a meeting for community members impacted by the fire. The in-person meeting drew 260 people, primarily residents of College Area, Kensington and Talmadge, including Hardy Elementary School families. Another 35 people joined by Zoom.

The Montezuma Fire: What happened & what’s next

The meeting was held in the Hoover High School Performing Arts Center on Nov. 21, just three weeks after the fire. It started and ended with a curated resource fair with planning guides to increase personal wildfire preparedness, educational material on a variety of subjects, like brush management, and a chance to see ember resistant vents firsthand.

San Diego Fire Chief Robert Logan helped start the meeting with a welcome and opening remarks. While he and other leaders of the San Diego Fire Department and Police Department took the stage, they received a spontaneous standing ovation as audience members showed immense gratitude for the phenomenal effort that saved lives and homes on that scary Halloween day.

The audience soon learned how 18 fire departments and several law enforcement agencies worked together to control the fire. Assistant Chief Dan Eddy described the attack from the ground and in the air. Compelling photographs showed the coordination among approximately 350 personnel, including engine strike teams, hand crews, and fixed-wing aircraft and helicopter operations.

Several times, it was noted that the lack of wind (only 8 mph and no gusts) and the extraordinary availability of firefighting personnel and equipment (because there were no competing fires), were in our favor. During his review of events, Eddy said, “I will tell you, from being a 25-year firefighter … when I pulled up on the scene, I expected us to lose 15 to 20 homes.”

Importance of an ember resistant home ignition zone

As the meeting progressed, Assistant Fire Marshal Alex Kane presented information to the group about wildfire behavior and how that relates to home ignition. He then posed this question, “What can we do to give the firefighters a fighting chance, so they’re not fighting our house fire, they’re fighting the wildfire that’s threatening the neighborhoods.” To provide the answer, he presented a case study of his damage assessment to show how the one house lost by the fire, actually ignited.

He used photographs to show how flying embers caused ignition, but it wasn’t through the vents. Kane’s testing showed ample evidence of extinguished embers on the vents. Instead, embers ignited a bed of combustibles on the side of the house. The mix of fuel, heat and oxygen then caused a low intensity fire to travel under a low-profile deck, which was then funneled under the house to exposed floor joists and vulnerable entry points, leading to structural ignition..

Kane went on to describe the importance of creating a “Zone 0” within the first five horizontal feet at the base of residential structures. Substantiated by testing conducted by the Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety and others, an ember resistant home ignition zone is one of the most important steps that can be taken to increase dwelling and neighborhood resilience to wildfire.

The suggested action is to remove combustible items and relocate them 30 feet from structures. And, to replace mulch, bark and flammable plants, with decomposed granite, dirt, gravel, rocks, pavers, or cement.

Time for Q & A

The last 30 minutes was spent trying to answer residents’ pressing questions, which were submitted on index cards.

Many sought answers about: how the fire started, brush management policies and practices, homeless encampments, notification alerts, AB 38 defensible space inspections, fire insurance, housing density in hazard severity zones and about evacuation difficulties for hundreds of residents, Hardy School children and their parents through SDSU.

Questions were addressed to a panel comprised of Council President Sean Elo-Rivera who represents District 9, including the neighborhoods affected by the fire; Assistant Fire Marshals Alex Kane and Dan Hypes; San Diego Police Lt. Chris Sharp who is in charge of emergency planning; Erika Ferreira the City’s Deputy Director of the Parks & Recreation Department’s Open Space Division; and Erika Weikel, Senior Park Ranger for Open Space Canyon Division. Although requested, SDSU declined to participate.

With a total of 85 index cards in-hand, organizers were able to get through about 10 questions in the allowable time frame. Because some answers were not forthcoming and time ran out to ask the others, organizers promised to determine the remaining answers and to post them on the kensingtonfiresafe.org website as soon as possible.

Fire safe councils help prepare neighborhoods for wildfire

As the meeting came to a close, a statement Kane made during his presentation helped to promote community collaboration, “The Fire Marshal and the Fire Chief want to encourage Fire Safe Councils (FSC). We really want to encourage the community to come together and create these councils, start to speak the same language, start to understand what the real problems are, and make changes in a community sense.”

To help residents learn about the resources, support and even grants available to FSCs, staff of the Fire Safe Council of San Diego County will host a community meeting for interested residents. Once scheduled, it will be publicized.

Karen Austin is Co-Chair of the Alvarado Estates Fire Safe Council and was an organizer of the Montezuma Fire community meeting with Judy Harrington, Co-Chair of Kensington Fire Safe. There are currently 43 FSCs in the County. Support to host the Montezuma Fire community meeting was provided by the San Diego Regional Fire Foundation. Special thanks to our first responders, department leaders, co-sponsors, volunteers and other community partners.

TOP CAPTION: A CAL FIRE fixed wing aircraft drops fire retardant on the hillside where one house in Alvarado Estates was lost as a result of the Montezuma Fire in College Area on Halloween day. (Courtesy photo)