SAN DIEGO (KGTV) – The smoke of the Sorrento Fire that torched more than 100 acres could been seen by many people on Sunday.
"I was coming back from SeaWorld and I drove up here and saw the smoke and I started getting worried,” Tom, who received an evacuation warning, said.
The Sorrento Fire ripped through over 100 acres in a matter of hours as crews raced on the ground and in the air to knock it down.
“It's pretty amazing to be honest, if you see the perimeter that they have set in red,” Tom said. “Part of it is the power of the human spirit, it's determination, teamwork, all of that.”
The air attack and the number of aircraft were instrumental in the firefight, according to Cal Fire San Diego.
“Cal Fire strategically places aircraft all around the state to where no matter where a fire starts in California, we will have a firefighting aircraft over it within 20 minutes,” Captain Josh Cormode with Cal Fire San Diego County said. “We had to reach out to Hemet Ryan Air Base, and we did have aircraft coming all the way from Santa Maria as well.”
Cal Fire told ABC 10News different aircraft, from helicopters to the C-130 and jet-liner style firefighting aircraft called an MD-87 from Santa Maria, were requested to battle the Sorrento Fire.
“A lot of the times our aircraft, when it's at Ramona, that's going to be the first dispatched. But when additional request for firefighting aircraft come in, we look to our next closest bases,” Cormode said. “So, we just go north to Hemet, and if they're available, they can come on down, and then we just continue moving north.”
Bringing in those added air assists helps ensure there’s always a resource flying overhead, preventing a fire from going from bad to worse.
“So instead of having to drop air tankers and then send them back to reload and not have any air tankers present, you can just continuously build that retardant line to try and cut that fire off,” Cormode said.
