Serra Mesa Homes Escape Canyon Blaze

A wind-whipped fire tore through a Serra Mesa canyon near Mobley Street Monday afternoon, threatening a dozen houses and scorching 10 acres of brush before it was extinguished.

A hundred firefighters and 25 vehicles were called to battle the fire, which neighbors believe was started by fireworks. The San Diego Fire Department first received a call from area residents at 1:32 p.m. and 75 minutes later the blaze had been put out without injury or damage to any structures.

Carol Lemmer, a waitress who works nights, said she was awakened by the smell of smoke. Holding an exhausted rabbit that had fled from the blaze, she pointed to the blackened line that had crept to within 20 yards of her house.

“I went out back and saw that the whole canyon was a sheet of flame, so I let the dogs out of the house and started to hose down the trees and the house,” she said.

There is a stand of 100-foot-tall palm trees in Lemmer’s, yard.

“For a while there was so much smoke that you couldn’t see five feet in front of you. The sparks and ash were drifting into the yard,” Lemmer said.

Like most of the houses that ring the canyon, Lemmer’s house is bordered by 30 feet of ice plant that acts as a firebreak. It was the ice plant, combined with a quick response by firefighters, that prevented damage to houses, according to Fire Department spokeswoman Ida Cheney.

The fire, which began on the western slope of the canyon, grew slowly as long as it was burning downhill. Once it reached the bottom of the canyon, however, it raced up the eastern slope “in a matter of minutes,” resident Jean Connor said.

Michael Natisin, who was planting more ice plant behind his house at the time of the fire, said that he heard fireworks exploding in the canyon shortly before the blaze began.

“I heard the explosions but didn’t think much of it. When I looked up a few minutes later there was already a pretty good size blaze going,” he said.

Natisin said he had torn out a wooden fence and cut down the brush backing his house after the Normal Heights fire last year. “I think that after Normal Heights everyone started to get really nervous about these fires,” he said.