{"id":421831,"date":"2026-08-02T16:20:31","date_gmt":"2026-08-02T16:20:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/421831\/"},"modified":"2026-08-02T16:20:31","modified_gmt":"2026-08-02T16:20:31","slug":"keeping-water-level-low-at-lake-hodges-invites-a-fire-disaster-san-diego-union-tribune","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/421831\/","title":{"rendered":"Keeping water level low at Lake Hodges invites a fire disaster \u2013 San Diego Union-Tribune"},"content":{"rendered":"<p dir=\"ltr\">Re \u201cRamona blaze threatening San Diego Country Estates\u201d (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.sandiegouniontribune.com\/2026\/07\/22\/evacuations-ordered-after-brush-fire-ignites-in-ramona\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">July 23<\/a>): The story on the Creelman fire showed what a firebreak is worth: 350 acres burned in Ramona; the homes stood.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">But July 22 wasn\u2019t a Santa Ana winds day. Under Santa Anas, that corridor runs west \u2014 the 2007 Witch Creek fire\u2019s path. Witch Creek stopped at Lake Hodges because the lake was full. The water was the firebreak \u2014 SDG&amp;E calls it critical.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">That firebreak is gone. A mandate holds Hodges below 280 feet; ahead of El Ni\u00f1o, below 270. Six hundred acres of open water are now dry grass CalFire rates highest-risk. Between an inland ignition and Del Mar, nothing but fuel.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">The math is upside down: Wildfire is 10,000 times likelier than a dam breach. Upstream, 10,000 homes and the San Dieguito River Park. Downstream, per the city\u2019s report, 500.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">The fix is free: Stop draining the rain. <a href=\"https:\/\/raiselakehodges.org\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Raise Hodges<\/a> to 295 feet \u2014 still 20 feet below the top.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">\u2014 Paul Bernstein, Escondido<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Re \u201cRamona blaze threatening San Diego Country Estates\u201d (July 23): The story on the Creelman fire showed what&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":421832,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[1564,975,74,76,75],"class_list":["post-421831","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-letters-to-the-editor","tag-opinion","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\/421831","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=421831"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421831\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/421832"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=421831"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=421831"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=421831"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}