Flames that spread from a burning house to trees and brush blackened swaths of hilly open land in the far northern reaches of San Diego County Tuesday afternoon and forced scores of people to leave their nearby homes as a precaution.
The two-story home in the 38800 block of Pala Temecula Road began burning for unknown reasons about 1:45 p.m., according to Cal Fire. The flames ignited adjacent foliage and began moving through heavy vegetation at a moderate rate, said Kendal Bortisser, a fire captain with the state agency.
Within 2 1/2 hours, the burn area east of Interstate 15 and roughly a mile south of the Riverside County line had grown to about 45 acres as crews fought the blaze by ground and aboard air tankers and water-dropping helicopters.
Authorities cleared 100 or so people out of homes potentially in the path of the fire and advised them to wait out the emergency at a makeshift evacuation center at Great Oak High School in Temecula, Bortisser said.
