A fire that grew to 100 acres in East County and forced evacuations at a resort just north of the U.S.-Mexico border was one of several wildland blazes firefighters responded to Monday afternoon, according to officials.
The brush fire began after a vehicle fire spread to nearby brush around 3:55 p.m. on Interstate 8 near McCain Valley Road, just north of Jacumba Hot Springs, Cal Fire Captain Mike Cornette said on X, formerly known as Twitter.
The blaze quickly spread from 20 acres to 100 acres and had the potential to grow to 1,000 acres, Cornette said around 5:15 p.m.
An evacuation order was in place for DeAnza Springs Resort, a luxury motel and RV site a few miles north of the border.
That blaze broke out a few miles east of another brush fire that was first reported around 11:40 a.m. near Kitchen Creek Road and Old Highway 80, according to Cleveland National Forest
As of about 2 p.m., they announced the fire had extended to 43 acres and was 5 percent contained.
A separate, smaller fire started around 2:40 p.m. on San Miguel Road just east of state Route 125, Cal Fire officials said in a post on X. The forward progress was stopped roughly an hour later at 7 acres.
Cal Fire and Cleveland National Forest officials could not be immediately reached for further details.
U-T intern Noah Lyons contributed to this report.