‘Fire All Over the Place’ Led Alpine Ave. Homeowners to Battle Blaze

Lucky it was a weekend.

Several years ago, the last time a fire crept up the hillside from state Route 125, Alpine Avenue resident Charles Moeller was at work.

“Somebody called and said, ‘I see your house on television,’” Moeller said Sunday afternoon as Heartland Fire crews and units from Mt. Miguel and Santee and El Cajon fire departments mopped up a 5-acre blaze sparked by a car fire north of state Route 94.

This time, Moeller smelled smoke, heard sirens and quickly began watering around his La Mesa house.

“With the wind direction … I knew it was going to spread in our direction,” said Moeller, who’s lived there for 15 years.

But the fire didn’t get any closer than 80 or 100 feet, he said, and the first fire units “were out here quickly.”

Evan McNulty, an Alpine Avenue neighbor, was inside his house when he smelled smoke and looked outside a window to see smoke coming up from the freeway.

“So I said, ‘Whoa. OK. That’s an issue,” McNulty told Patch after he and his father spent an hour on his roof keeping it wet as embers landed around his home, including on backyard furniture and windowsills.

Also see photo gallery and hillside smoke video:

La Mesa Hillside Fire Along SR 125 No Longer Threatening Homes

“There was fire all over the place,” he said, leading to some smoldering asphalt shingles on his roof—which he quickly doused. “The palm tree was on fire. I started spraying everything I could.”

He said a helicopter made water drops and he was encouraged to keep training his hose on his property. Firefighters even used his hoses before their own were deployed, he said.

An 18-year resident of Alpine Avenue, near Garfield Street, McNulty said this fire came closer to his home than the one a couple years ago.

Lucky for motorists it wasn’t a weekday either, since southbound lanes of Route 125 slowed to a crawl.

The California Highway Patrol received reports of a car on fire on the highway south of Spring Street shortly before 2 p.m.

A SigAlert was temporarily in effect for two southbound lanes in the area. Officials also temporarily shut down some nearby freeway onramps, and there were reports of drivers turning around on the freeway.

Residents on Garfield Street were initially asked to evacuate, but Heartland Fire & Rescue officials said about 3:45 p.m. that evacuations were no longer needed.

—Chris Stone and City News Service contributed to this report.