![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/DMT-L-FIRESAFE-01.jpeg\")
The North City West Fire Safe Council collaborative held a Fire Safety Workshop on June 27 at Del Mar Heights School. (Phoebe Gardiner Katsell)<\/p>\nThe North City West Fire Safe Council collaborative held a successful Fire Safety Workshop on June 27 at Del Mar Heights School with over 100 people in attendance, according to a press release. Members of the San Diego Fire Department, CAL Fire, American Red Cross, California Department of Insurance, and Rex Hambly, a fire prevention specialist from the US Wildland Fire Service, spoke about the recent Sorrento Valley Fire, preparedness, evacuation plans, home hardening and defensible space.<\/p>\n
The workshop was held in the school\u2019s auditorium with the backdrop of the Torrey Pines State Natural Reserve Extension, where a wildfire burned 28 acres in 2024.<\/p>\n
Guest speaker San Diego City Council President Joe LaCava complimented the work of the Fire Safe Councils of Carmel Valley, Del Mar, Del Mar Heights, Del Mar Mesa, Sorrento Valley and Torrey Hills, the volunteers who have organized quickly over the last few years.<\/p>\n
The North City West Fire Safe Council collaborative held a Fire Safety Workshop on June 27 at Del Mar Heights School. (Phoebe Gardiner Katsell)<\/p>\n
\u201cThe city of San Diego had fire safe councils on the eastern edge where we had some of the more dramatic and tragic fires back in the day,\u201d LaCava said. \u201cI think as we begin to realize what makes Del Mar Heights, Del Mar Terrace, Torrey Hills, Del Mar Mesa, Carmel Valley, Pacific Highlands Ranch so special a place to live is because you\u2019re surrounded by open space that gives you room to breathe, more fresh air and hiking trails. Those are such tremendous assets, but I think we\u2019ve learned, and as it was dramatically shown a couple weeks ago with the Sorrento Fire, there\u2019s a little bit of risk with that. And if we don\u2019t properly manage that risk from the city\u2019s point of view and as individual property owners, that can become a problem.\u201d<\/p>\n
As San Diego Fire Battalion Chief Jason Brackpool shared, the extremely fast-moving Sorrento Valley brush fire spread through the canyon near Carmel Valley on June 8.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had a lot of challenges right off the bat,\u201d Brackpool said, noting that within just eight minutes of being dispatched, the fire had spread rapidly uphill and began to threaten homes. They tackled the fire aggressively with 350 people on the ground and CalFire air resources, and while 90 total acres burned, thanks to the six-hour firefight, no one was hurt and no structures were damaged.<\/p>\n
The morning was traumatic for those who lived nearby, and it again reinforced the need to always be prepared. At the workshop, a panel of firefighters gave tips to homeowners during a question-and-answer session, including questions about the new \u201cZone Zero\u201d requirements, the defensible space restrictions within the first five feet of homes in Very High Fire Severity Zones. The event also included an expo with fire-safety vendors, information about block ambassadors and a new fuel reduction project in Del Mar\u2019s Crest Canyon.<\/p>\n
For community members who were unable to attend and would like to learn more, a video of the workshop can be found at https:\/\/youtu.be\/GEe473_khUQ?si=clb1FMQ5cc7df5J2<\/p>\n
The North City West collaboration of Fire Safe Councils includes the Fire Safe Councils of Carmel Valley (carmelvalleyfsc@gmail.com), Del Mar (doloresdj@gmail.com), Del Mar Heights (dmfsc92014@gmail.com or dmhfsc.org), Del Mar Mesa (delmarmesafsc@gmail.com or delmarmesafiresafe.org), Sorrento Valley (mlgreen3@gmail.com) and Torrey Hills (thfscteam@gmail.com.) If you are interested in joining your local FSC or signing up for upcoming workshops and events, contact your neighborhood FSC.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The North City West Fire Safe Council collaborative held a successful Fire Safety Workshop on June 27 at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":406701,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[310,311,74,76,75],"class_list":["post-406700","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-del-mar-times","tag-del-mar-times-news","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/406700","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=406700"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/406700\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/406701"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=406700"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=406700"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=406700"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}