When the call reporting a brush fire in Otay Mesa came out Thursday, fire agencies pounced. Not just San Diego Fire-Rescue, but Chula Vista, National City and Coronado. Officials quickly brought in air resources, hand crews and differing types of fire rigs. “We just swarmed it. We were able to catch a fire on a slope and have it cold in 20 minutes,” San Diego Fire-Rescue Deputy Chief Brian Brainard said Thursday. Crews kept it to an acre. San Diego County’s fire agencies have been on the balls of their feet all week, as Santa Anas and low humidity create dangerous fire weather, especially in dry brush. And nerves have frayed as San Diegans watch Los Angeles grappling with deadly, destructive fires. The high-fire danger warning for San Diego was extended into 6 p.m. Friday. The National Weather Service says Santa Ana winds hitting Los Angeles from the north will shift and come in from the east — blowing directly into San Diego County’s canyons — bringing winds of 40 to 70 mph in areas east of Interstate 15. Several water tanker helicopters drop water on a fire off La Cresta Road. (Nelvin C. Cepeda / The San Diego Union-Tribune) Earlier in the week, on Wednesday night, the threat led San Diego Gas & Electric to cut power to nearly 9,000 customers in the backcountry and beyond. Everyone had the lights back by Thursday afternoon, but the barrage of high winds could mean another Public Safety Power Shutoff. Improved weather conditions allowed crews to patrol power lines and inspect equipment in affected areas. Schools are set to be closed Friday in Mountain Empire, Warner and both Julian school districts due to the potential for power shutoffs. Fire agencies across the region are working to prepare for — and more so, to prevent — a firestorm fueled by dry brush and brutal winds. Brainard pointed to collaboration between all the metro-zone agencies. “The perfect example is what we experienced earlier today, with that 1-acre fire where we had all those different agencies on it,” he said. “We’re doing everything we need to ensure that we protect life, first, and property and then the environment,” Brainard said. Brainard said the agencies work with the state’s Office of Emergency Services and consider several factors in making resource and planning decisions. He noted that San Diego did not see Santa Anas “nearly as bad as what we saw in L.A.” He also said fire officials from all the regional fire agencies have been conferring regularly throughout the day, whether in meetings or phone calls. Among the considerations are where to put equipment and crews and how to backfill those resources to plug holes. “Those type of questions are being evaluated on a literally hour-by-hour basis during these significant events,” Brainard said. At Cal Fire, which has more than 50 stations in the region, all the firefighters are on duty, with all regular days off canceled. The extra people mean additional equipment, including water tenders and fire engines, gets staffed, and a few can be pre-positioned if desired. Cal Fire said it also has five helicopters, two air tankers and an air attack plane ready to go. That sort of readiness helped them jump fast on a brush fire in the Crest area in rural East County early Thursday afternoon. Crews kept it to less than 3 acres. As firefighters worked in Crest, more than 20 employees from Cal Fire and the U.S. Forest Service worked at an office building nestled in the back of Cal Fire’s 5-acre San Diego-area headquarters just outside El Cajon. Their job is to monitor and manage over 1.8 million acres of local land under their jurisdiction. Suzann Leininger monitors multiple screens at the Cal Fire Dispatch Center on Thursday in El Cajon. (Meg McLaughlin / The San Diego Union-Tribune) At the front of the room, under 10 separate 50-inch screens, sat intel specialist Suzann Leininger, who helps coordinate firefighters’ response in real-time. The new screens — installed last summer — display maps, graphs and camera feeds with topographical information, weather patterns, even locations of individual engines and aircraft in the field. Within seconds of receiving a 911 call, Leininger can pull up feeds from AlertCalifornia — a camera system UC San Diego set up in remote areas to track wildfires — and search for smoke and flames. Artificial intelligence software also offers an assist, flagging potential smoke or fire on the camera feeds before a single witness calls in. Within two minutes of confirming a fire, Leininger can send a one-page file to firefighters in the field, breaking down the projected burn zone of the fire and what to expect when they arrive on scene, including how erratic the fire might be, the fire’s growth rate and the terrain difficulty. Multiple locations are seen on various screens at Cal Fire Dispatch Center on Thursday in El Cajon. (Meg McLaughlin / The San Diego Union-Tribune) The forecasts and projections, Leininger says, have been used by Cal Fire for the last four years, but the high-resolution screens give crews a “picture worth a million words.” It translates into a faster response, and a better one, with the right resources. “We had over 200 fires last year, but you hardly hear about those,” Leininger said while sitting at her electronic command center. “Our goal is to keep fires below 10 acres and if it’s stopped early before becoming newsworthy, that’s the best-case scenario.” Staff writers Gary Robbins and Rob Nikolewski contributed to this report.