SAN DIEGO (KGTV) — While Montezuma Road has reopened and crews continue mopping up after the Fairmount fire, some families living just above the hillside remain unable to stay in their homes.
Charlie Ertl, a resident of Lila Drive since 1980, said this is the first time he’s needed air purifiers in his home.
“Servpro, who works with our insurance company, brought this in; they brought in three of them,” Ertl said. “It takes the air in from the top, and you can see how it’s filtering out particles—it was completely white when they started it last night.”
In nearly 40 years of living above this canyon, Ertl said this is the closest flames have come to his home. The Fairmount Fire scorched most of their backyard and outdoor furniture. While their house was saved, the lingering smoke has made it unsafe for Ertl and his wife to return.
“The smoke is so bad that we cannot live in it,” Ertl explained. “The people who came out to remediate it said, ‘You can’t be here until we finish,’ so we got an Airbnb. We don’t know how long — I hope it’s not very long.”
Ertl said he’s always been aware of the risk.
“I think you’re always aware that it could happen. But after 40 years without something happening, you start to think, ‘Oh, it’s probably not going to happen,’ and the odds were that it wasn’t going to change... but here we are.”
Despite the close call, Ertl doesn’t plan on moving from his hillside home.
“This is our home. What we might do is change the foliage in the backyard to keep it farther away.”
San Diego fire officials said the cause of the fire is still under investigation, though it appears to have started near a homeless encampment.
