San Diego, CA
'It's just a lot of anxiety': Family loses home in Mission Valley brush fire
A brush fire that burned near Fashion Valley Mall nearly a week ago was held at just 3 acres, but it was big enough to destroy the home of a mother and her two children.
Tina Burell’s home is situated at the top of a ridge off Friars Road. Her family had been living in that Mission Valley condo for the last nine years before it caught fire last Tuesday.
“From one day to the next, you have nothing. You have no socks, no underwear. It’s just the little things you take for granted,” Burell said.
A brush fire near Fashion Valley Mall raced up the hillside towards homes, damaging one building. NBC 7’s Shandel Menezes reports on Jan. 21, 2025.
With the help of her company, Burell has been staying in a hotel while she looks for a new place to live.
“I am hoping that I can sleep again,” Burell said. “I haven’t really slept. It’s just a lot of anxiety.”
She recorded videos of the damage when she was allowed back inside to retrieve personal affects that might have been spared.
“It’s destroyed,” Burell said. “It smells horrible. You can hardly breathe when you walk in. There was probably 3 inches of water. There’s ash. There’s soot, everything. I mean, you can see the sky. The roof is burnt off.”
From the burned brush, you can tell there was fire all around Burell’s condominium, but there are no char marks up the wall leading to her home. The roof, however, was on fire. There is evidence of that.
Inside at the time was her 26-year-old daughter Brittany Nicholas. She says she heard an explosion, the whole condo shook and she began smelling smoke. Nicholas escaped with the family dog. Their cat did not survive.
“They said we can’t go back in, that they were calling Red Cross and that it was uninhabitable,” Burell said.
Other people in the complex say two utility poles caught fire and that the explosion was a nearby transformer. That may explain why the roof caught fire first.
Firefighters say they are still investigating the cause.
“Traumatic,” Burell said. “You never expect it. I have been there nine years.”
Burell is grateful she still has her family and a job. Figuring out the rest, however, is proving to be a distressing difficulty. She says the condo next door also sustained damage, but she’s not sure how much or whether the residents are living there.
San Diego, CA
Trump's executive order cancels travel plans for refugees heading to San Diego
Just weeks after arriving in San Diego, refugee Nobert Oroma is facing an uncertain future — one filled with worry for the family members he was forced to leave behind. The South Sudanese refugee spent the last 20 years in a Ugandan refugee camp before finally being granted legal resettlement in the United States. But now, due to a recent policy change, his siblings were unable to join him in time.
“I’m really worried,” Oroma shared. “I don’t know what will happen.”
Oroma and his family originally fled war in South Sudan nearly two decades ago, seeking safety and stability. After spending 18 years on a waitlist for legal resettlement, the opportunity finally came. He and three family members made it to San Diego, but his brother and sister — scheduled to fly out on January 27 — had their plans abruptly canceled.
Just days before their departure, President Trump signed an executive order suspending the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program, a policy designed to provide a safe haven for some of the world’s most vulnerable populations. The sudden shift has left Oroma’s siblings stranded in Uganda and their family separated once again.
Oroma is not alone. Katherine Bom, the executive director of RefugeeNet, a local nonprofit that assists refugees in starting a new life in San Diego, says multiple families are now in limbo. Her organization was preparing to welcome 15 refugees this week, all of whom had their travel plans revoked due to the policy change.
“We were so excited to have people in the community to welcome them,” Bom said, standing in a warehouse filled with donated housewares: mattresses, furniture, coffee makers, backpacks, bicycles — all intended for those who were supposed to arrive.
According to the Department of Homeland Security, more than 60,000 refugees were admitted to the U.S. in 2023, with the majority coming from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Syria, and Afghanistan.
Advocates argue that halting the refugee resettlement program not only disrupts lives but also leaves thousands vulnerable to violence, poverty, and displacement. Bom hopes the policy will be reversed to allow those left behind a chance to start anew.
“Hopefully, the policy will change and give these people a chance,” she said.
For Oroma, that chance means everything.
San Diego, CA
Suspected arson fire outside Oceanside Regal Cinema
On Thursday authorities said a fire was deliberately set in a plastic drainage pipe outside a movie theatre in downtown Oceanside with nobody inside at the time.
The fire was first reported at 10:20 p.m. Wednesday at the Regal Cinema at 401 Mission Ave., the Oceanside Fire Department said in a statement.
Fire crews found fire coming from a drainage pipe on the front wall of the theater and heavy smoke was billowing from the roof above, the OFD statement said.
Crews were assigned to make sure nobody was inside the theater, the OFD said.
Fire crews were able to contain the fire to the point of origin and found a room on the opposite side of that exterior wall, that had been filled with smoke. Damage to the inside was kept to a minimum, fire officials said.
The OFD said its investigators were at the scene looking for the cause of the fire and so far, no suspects have been identified.
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