Crews have removed more than 60 tons of dried brush and invasive plants from Mission Trails Regional Park, officials announced Wednesday.
“That's 31 cars’ worth of weight that is no longer in this park, that can catch fire and spread with the wind and start to burn down homes,” said San Diego City Councilmember Raul Campillo, whose district includes the park.
The multi-year effort to reduce fire risk in the park started in September 2024. Crews have covered more than 750 acres, about a tenth of the park’s acreage.
In 2003, the Cedar Fire burned about 2,800 acres in the park.
“My neighbors drive home from work from all over the county, and they see just how Mission Trails goes from green to brown as it gets hotter and hotter at the end of the summer and into the fall,” Campillo said. “They rightfully worry, ‘Is this going to be a fire hazard?’”
The nonprofit Mission Trails Regional Park Foundation has led the project. State funding for the project comes from the San Diego River Conservancy.
That funding has allowed the foundation to expand on the city's brush management efforts, said the park foundation’s executive director, Jennifer Morrissey.
“Public-private partnerships like this matter, especially at a time when the city is being asked to do more with limited resources,” she said. “Mission Trails is city-owned land, but caring for our more than 8,000 acres takes all of us.”
The foundation contracted RECON Environmental to do the work. Margaret Thompson, a restoration analyst with RECON, said the first step was to remove non-native thatch. That’s a layer of dead or decaying plant matter on top of the soil.
“That non-native biomass thatch can act as kindling for fires,” she said. “It's not only a huge fire risk, but it takes away open space or a habitat that could be native species habitat.”
On Wednesday morning, crews were line trimming invasive grass. It depletes the number of seeds a plant has in its reserves. Thompson said biologists have been collecting native plant seeds throughout the park.
“We plan to spread those seeds throughout the park towards the end of our project,” she said.
The project will continue through Fall 2027.
