A small wildfire broke out on San Rafael Hill in Marin County on Tuesday morning, prompting a quick response from firefighters who stopped its spread before it could grow. Officials said there were no evacuations as of 11:16 a.m., and the public was told no further action was needed.
The fire was first reported as a new wildfire burning on city land, according to seed reporting from the Sacramento Bee, which cited the National Interagency Fire Center as the source of the initial report. Firefighters contained and stopped the spread of the blaze, according to Patch, which also reported that officials asked residents not to call 911 about the fire since it had already been handled. Details on the fire's cause and containment specifics were not immediately available.
A Familiar Hillside for Small Fires
This isn't the first time San Rafael Hill has caught fire. In November 2023, a quarter-acre grass fire broke out there at about 2:30 a.m. near the San Rafael Elks Lodge, west of Robert Dollar Drive, per the same account from Patch's sister outlet, the Marin Independent Journal. Five engine crews and an ambulance crew responded that night, and firefighters controlled the blaze within about 20 minutes, with no one evacuated and no injuries or structure damage reported.
The fire department at the time said the cause of the 2023 blaze appeared related to unhoused encampments or related activity, since personal belongings were found nearby, the Marin Independent Journal reported. It is not known whether Tuesday's fire shares any connection to that earlier incident or cause.
A Busier Fire Season Across Marin
Tuesday's fire follows a far larger blaze in the county just weeks earlier. The Chileno Fire burned a combined 340 acres near the Marin-Sonoma county border on September 20, according to the Press Democrat. The Marin County Fire Department responded to that fire at about 4:40 p.m. after finding multiple spot fires burning along Chileno Valley Road, and crews stopped forward progress on one smaller fire about 4:50 p.m. before halting the other two just before 7 p.m. Officials did not issue evacuation orders or warnings during that response either, though smoke drifted toward Sonoma County and worsened air quality in Petaluma.
The back-to-back incidents arrive amid a wildfire season that national monitors describe as more active than usual. The National Interagency Fire Center reported that, year-to-date, 62,738 fires have burned more than 9 million acres nationwide, equal to 135% of the 10-year average number of fires and 147% of the average acreage burned by this point in the year. Separately, CAL FIRE has noted that wildfire activity has been trending above normal, with weakening coastal marine layers potentially contributing to elevated fire risk in some coastal zones.
No additional details on injuries, property damage, or the cause of Tuesday's San Rafael Hill fire have been confirmed. Hoodline will update this story as more information becomes available.
