Another bushfire occured in California last Wednesday. San Diego Tribune reports that the 4-acre brush fire forced some evacuation and caused the closure of westbound lanes of state Route 78 between Vista and San Marcos on Wednesday. The motorists alerted the California Highway Patrol (CHP) around 12:38 p.m. that a fire along the right was heading uphill and had threatened home. The fire started east of Sycamore Avenue in a separate area between Vista and Rancho Santa Fe Road in San Marcos. Heavy smoke was seen across from the freeway so all the three lanes going west were closed.
Four or five houses on the Green Meadows Way with the backyards facing the freeway were at risk of being swallowed in the fire according to Vista fire Deputy Chief Ned Vander Pol. On backyard wooden fence was torched and smoked made its way into some of the homes while the sheriff's deputies went door-to-door telling residents to evacuate
Luckily, no one was injured and about four acres of grass, light brush and small trees were charred.
Nine engine companies from Vista, San Marcos, Carlsbad and Cal Fire contained the fire at around 1:20 p.m., Vander Pol said.
"It happened so fast," said Andria Radford, who could see the fire from her home on Poinsettia Avenue near Green Meadows. "It just erupted, whoosh."
Radford said it was the second fire in the area in two years, and she hoped that Caltrans would soon rid the freeway shoulders of dry vegetation.
Virginia Agricola, a resident of Green Meadows, was feeding her 5-month-old granddaughter when workers next door knocked on her door to warn her about the blaze. Agricola said she could see smoke rising above her backyard fence, then a deputy came by to tell her to evacuate. She grabbed the baby and a dog and headed into the street.
"I was shaken up," Agricola said. "I didn't think I was going to come back home. I thought I was going to have to move." She is lucky that her home was spared from damage but her vinyl fence was melted in the heat of the fire. Part of her wooden fence burned.
