Several small brush fires started in San Diego County amid scorching temperatures on Tuesday as about a dozen fires sparked south of the border.
As the heat blared down on inland areas, a brush fire sparked alongside Interstate 8 in El Cajon before 2:30 p.m. Tuesday.
White smoke was visible from a distance as fire crews responded to a small, brush-filled freeway shoulder to halt the fire's spread.
The California Highway Patrol said the fire may have ignited some power poles. There were no outages in the area reported by San Diego Gas & Electric as of 3 p.m.
CalTrans said there were no lane closures due to the fire.
Meanwhile, Cal Fire San Diego firefighters were responding to a fire along the U.S.-Mexico border that had began to spread to vegetation east of the Otay Mesa Port of Entry.
The fire had burned about two acres on the California side as of 10 a.m. but was not threatening any structures, the agency said. The fire's spread was halted by the evening but Cal Fire said the " situation remains very dynamic due to the number of fires burning in the area."
Also in the early afternoon, Cal Fire crews from the North County responded to a small brush fire in the Fallbrook area. Within 30 minutes, firefighters had stopped the forward rate of spread of the approximately 1-acre fire. The cause of the fire was not known.
Across the border, firefighters from Tijuana were battling a series of fires that have been broken out in the last day amid a heat wave that afflicts the region.
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The fire department informed Telemundo 20 that at the moment most of the fires are in grassland areas.
Just before noon, brush also caught fire near the Martin Luther King Jr. Recreation Center in the Skyline neighborhood of San Diego. The fire never grew larger than a few meters wide but officials said the small blaze was started by a landscaping crew using a weed whacker.
A similar incident occurred in Jamul, where a brush fire spraked by power equipment scorched about a half-acre.
"This type of equipment should never be used when the temps are high and winds are blowing," Cal Fire warned.
San Diego County's Fire Ready Plan advises residents to avoid using landscaping equipment in the heat of the day, especially when winds are blowing.
In San Marcos, a small brush fire was reported along East Mission Road before North County Fire District crews stopped it. No injuries or damage to buildings was reported, though the fire did temporarily threaten one structure.
Another small brush fire was quickly halted in Otay Mesa, near Montgomery High School.
The National Weather Service issued a heat advisory along the coast from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Tuesday. The extreme heat and some gusty winds were contributing to a minor threat of fire danger, NWS said.
High temperatures are forecasted to reach 91 degrees near the coast, 98 inland, 99 in the western valleys, 91 near the foothills, 86 in the mountains and 100 in the deserts. A cool down will begin on Wednesday.
