Safety issues persist a year after Montezuma Fire

Overview: Montezuma Fire

It’s been a little over a year since the Montezuma Fire torched a half-mile grove of palms and raced up the hillside to canyon rim homes in Talmadge.

It’s been a little over a year since the Montezuma Fire torched a half-mile grove of palms and raced up the hillside to canyon rim homes in Talmadge.

It took eighteen fire agencies to control the nearly 40-acre blaze, on the ground and from the air. Police officers went door-to-door with evacuation orders for residents living in Alvarado Estates, College View Estates, Talmadge, and parts of Kensington.

Residents of Alvarado Estates and College View Estates who tried to snake through the San Diego State University campus to safety reported traveling less than a mile in 1.5 hours due to severe gridlock.

Some, out of fear of dying in their vehicle, said they turned back to shelter at home.

“If there had been wind that day, like there was during the L.A. fires, we all know it could have been a much more devastating outcome,” said Alfredo Valverde, who evacuated with two young grandchildren from his home in Alvarado Estates. 

In fact, one home in Alvarado Estates was a total loss, and six homes in Talmadge incurred damage. 

A terrifying evacuation experience is a likely reason so many residents in this fire-prone region are now working together with renewed focus on wildfire preparedness. While there have been many accomplishments since the fire, there are also several critical safety issues community members still want addressed.

Post-fire accomplishments

• 300 community members attended a meeting at Hoover High School three weeks after the fire to hear directly from fire, police, and other officials about what happened and how one house ignited by flying embers. 
• 60 of those people met in January 2025, as neighborhood teams to form five new Fire Safe Councils (FSCs). 
• Seven voluntary Mid-City FSCs now serve: Alvarado Estates, College Canyons and College East (serving east and west sides of College Area), Kensington, Normal Heights, Rolando Park, and Talmadge. 
• A new coalition brings the FSC leaders together for support and to collaboratively serve the region through educational outreach, program development, and more.
• Local environmental groups, including the Resource Conservation District and San Diego Canyonlands, observe post-fire conditions and discussed possible actions with FSC leaders, which could aim to remediate, restore and/or reduce future wildfire risk for the decades to come. 
• Litter-pickers from Kensington and Talmadge, and more recently Alvarado Estates and College View Estates, have been meeting on the first Sunday of each month to clean up the gateway to their neighborhoods and SDSU. They also monitor for unsafe encampments and work to address them and other public safety issues.
• Alvarado Estates FSC is working with property owners to upgrade their older homes with (WUI Code) approved ember-resistant vents to prevent wind-blown embers from entering homes, a cause of building ignition even miles from a fire front.
• Kensington Fire Safe and Talmadge FSC have hosted “Dumpathons” to encourage more brush management by homeowners. 

Mike Baldwin, board member and chairperson of KFS Dumpathons, explained the purpose and what was accomplished: “We’re concerned about the ignition risk of a lot of overgrown plant vegetation, so we’ve been using some grant funds we received from the San Diego Regional Fire Foundation to periodically provide free use of green waste dumpsters right in our neighborhood.” 

In October, they completed their second two-week Dumpathon of the year, with 17 dumpsters.

“Residents cleared 45.36 tons of plant material to lessen the risk that their house will catch fire and to create defensible space so firefighters will have access to protect their home,” said Baldwin.

• Key partners, including the County of San Diego Fire Safe Council (with more than 50 member FSCs), numerous other non-profits, local and state fire and government agencies, provide support to FSCs and other groups preparing for wildfire.
• The City of San Diego Fire-Rescue Department is implementing special initiatives in the area, like the application of Citrotech, an EPA-certified fire inhibitor being used to maintain the Montezuma/Fairmount evacuation corridor. 

San Diego Fire-Rescue crews recently sprayed Citrotech, an EPA-certified fire inhibitor, along the Montezuma Road and Fairmount Avenue evacuation corridor to help prevent fire ignition and flame spread. (Photo by Karen Austin)

Based on data for the same periods, between January and November of each year, efforts to address wildfire hazards and risks seem to be helping. 

“In 2024, we had 10 documented fires in the area around Montezuma and Fairmount, and in 2025, we had seven,” said Alex Kane, assistant fire marshal/wildfire program manager for San Diego Fire-Rescue. 

“All in all, it’s a reduction of 30%. That’s a positive trend and we are still working hard to implement proactive steps to protect this evacuation route.”

Ongoing challenges remain 

While many positive changes have been made this past year, community members still want answers and still want action to better address critical issues. 

Two in particular remain top of mind among those affected by the Montezuma Fire.

• Planning for future evacuations: Residents want to know how the City’s fire and police departments and SDSU leaders are planning for better multi-agency communication and coordination to ensure safe evacuations during future wildfires and other emergencies. 
• Removal of unsafe encampments: One of the most pressing safety issues continues to be the chronic encampments of unhoused people along Fairmount Avenue and Montezuma Road. According to the official record, the Montezuma Fire was ignited “in or very near an encampment.” Propane tanks, gas cans, cooking stoves, and heaters are common items in encampments, which continue to put lives and properties at risk every day.

Encampments on public and private land in urban canyon settings can be difficult to monitor and difficult to address.

Many people use the city’s Get-It-Done online platform or mobile app to report them and to request assistance to remove them. Trespassing of uninvited campers on private property continues to be a mitigation challenge. 

Despite community members and officials working together, residents believe a much more productive approach is still needed to assist unhoused individuals and to prevent their unsafe camping in urban canyon environments, especially in very high fire hazard severity zones like the Mid-City region.

These are just some of the many efforts that have taken place since the Montezuma Fire, all aiming to help residents in the surrounding neighborhoods get people, pets, and properties ready for wildfires. 

Learn more about local Fire Safe Councils here.

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