Wildfires had burned nearly 1,000 acres in San Diego County by Thursday afternoon but did not pose a threat to the San Onofre Nuclear plant shuttered last year.
In a release Wednesday, Southern California Edison said it had evacuated 13 non-essential employees from an area of the plant known as the south yard. Others were dispatched to soak adjacent vegetation as a precautionary measure, and the plant contributed personnel to firefighting efforts at the Marines Corps' Camp Pendleton nearby.
SCE offered assurances to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the public that the fire did not pose a safety issue at the plant. In a report to the NRC, the plant said that activation of its emergency response organization was not required. SCE did not indicate that the situation had changed as of Thursday afternoon.
Both units at San Onofre are defueled and await decommissioning. SCE announced last June that it would close the plant rather than undertake costly repairs to steam generators showing premature tube wear.