{"id":474004,"date":"2026-09-24T08:10:14","date_gmt":"2026-09-24T08:10:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/474004\/"},"modified":"2026-09-24T08:10:14","modified_gmt":"2026-09-24T08:10:14","slug":"mission-trails-gets-a-62-ton-makeover-to-reduce-wildfire-risk-san-diego-union-tribune","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/474004\/","title":{"rendered":"Mission Trails gets a 62-ton makeover to reduce wildfire risk \u2013 San Diego Union-Tribune"},"content":{"rendered":"

Slightly more than 62 tons of brush and waste have been removed from Mission Trails Regional Park<\/a> to reduce the risk of wildfires in communities nearby, restore natural habitat and protect the San Diego River watershed.<\/p>\n

\u201cMission Trails is city-owned land, but caring for more than 8,000 acres takes all of us,\u201d Jennifer Morrissey, executive director of the Mission Trails Regional Park Foundation<\/a>, said during a news conference Wednesday. \u201cThis work isn\u2019t just about taking invasive fire-prone plants out, it\u2019s also about giving space for native plants to thrive.\u201d<\/p>\n

Crews from RECON Environmental<\/a>, the foundation\u2019s contractor, have helped clear some 756 acres of the park since September 2024. RECON has removed 29 individual 40-yard containers of green waste. That\u2019s roughly the weight of 31 passenger cars.<\/p>\n

The work was done through a $1.8 million award from the San Diego River Conservancy<\/a>, an agency under the umbrella of the California Natural Resources Agency. The award is administered through the Mission Trails Foundation.<\/p>\n

The grant runs through the fall of 2027 and the agreement specifically calls for lowering the risk and intensity of fire by reducing flammable fuel loads by removing non-native plants while protecting native habitat.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe cannot guarantee that there won\u2019t be a fire, but we can work endlessly to make sure your family is safe, and we leave no stone unturned,\u201d said Raul Campillo, San Diego city council member \u00a0<\/a>and chair of the Mission Trails Regional Task Force and vice chair of the San Diego River Conservancy Board.<\/p>\n

Wednesday\u2019s news conference coincides with National Preparedness Month, observed each September to encourage people to take precautions for emergencies and disasters.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn San Diego, we don\u2019t need a designated month to remind us to stay ready all the time,\u201d San Diego Fire-Rescue Deputy Fire Chief Dan Eddy<\/a> said. \u201cWildfire is a year-round threat, and preparing for that threat is a shared responsibility.\u201d<\/p>\n

When work started three years ago, one of the first restoration efforts involved dethatching and removing years of accumulated dead,\u00a0 non-native vegetation. Getting rid of that layer helps reduce fuel loads and gives native vegetation more room to recover.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will never forget the lessons learned in 2003 and 2007,\u201d said Mayor Todd Gloria<\/a>, referring to the Cedar Fire in 2003 and the Witch Creek and Guejito Fires in 2007<\/a> that ravaged the area. \u201cSo proper brush management is a critical component of making sure that we are ready as a community when that day comes again.\u201d<\/p>\n

City of San Diego rangers and crews already conduct vegetation and brush management in various open-space locations. The Mission Trails project supplements and does not replace the work performed by the city.<\/p>\n

Located just eight miles northeast of downtown San Diego, Mission Trails Regional Park includes about 60 miles of trails and is one of the largest urban parks in the country<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Slightly more than 62 tons of brush and waste have been removed from Mission Trails Regional Park to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":474005,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[138,643,181,23,100,74,76,75,1696],"class_list":["post-474004","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-crime-and-public-safety","tag-environment","tag-latest-headlines","tag-local-news","tag-news","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news","tag-top-stories-sdut"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/474004","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=474004"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/474004\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/474005"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=474004"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=474004"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=474004"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}