brush fire

Firefighters Nearing Full Containment of Aruba Fire Burning in North County

As of Tuesday evening, the blaze was at 54 acres with 90% containment, Cal Fire said

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Cal Fire firefighters are close to full containment on the Aruba Fire, which sparked over the weekend near Rainbow.

In a tweet sent Tuesday night, Cal Fire said the 54-acre fire was 90% contained, up 30% from the night before.

"Firefighters still have some work to do, finishing up control line, removing hose, and cleaning up," the tweet said.

The fire prompted evacuation orders in several North County communities, but those orders were lifted Monday morning.

The fire was first reported at 4:25 p.m. Sunday and within just about half an hour, the fire had quickly increased to 40-50 acres with a moderate rate of spread, Cal Fire said. Later that day, the forward rate of the blaze had been stopped.

Initially, the agency said the blaze was at about 100 acres but reduced that figure to 54 on Monday due to "more accurate mapping."

Evacuations were ordered Sunday for some areas in the Rainbow community and temporary evacuation points were set up at Vallecitos Elementary School and at the Christ the King Lutheran Church in Fallbrook.

The impacted households were given the all-clear on Monday morning to return home and affected roadways were reopened.

Cal Fire PIO Frank Lococo said over 20 engines had been out of the San Diego area for the past month to help with the Dixie and Caldor fires – but said luckily their absence wasn’t felt on Sunday.

"We have 25 engines and crews and several individual overhead positions assigned to various fires throughout the state," Lococo said. "We still have quite a bit of resources available here in the county and we were able to aggressively attack this fire with multiple resources, but we also depend on our operators through local government, federal counterparts."

Investigators are still working on determining the cause of the fire as crews continue containment efforts.

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