Norte Fire: 6 homes damaged, destroyed in fire

All right, we've been watching this house, unfortunately, all but burned to the ground. Nick Garcia has been up on the hill there with firefighters. Let's get back to him. Again, this is the Norte Fire, which has torched six homes and burned more than 460 acres. Nick? Yes, that's right, Glenn. Christine, the firefighters who had hoses here have just moved that way because there is some fire burning on a different side of the hill. We're trying to get a better idea of exactly where it is, but certainly they're trying to prevent it from spreading to other homes as this one you see those flames just continue to rage on this has been going on for hours here and we're just looking through what used to be a window what used to be uh the roof and the walls and um are now just destroyed here as the flames continue to take over this very very large house i am seeing i don't know if Gino can uh see that down there by the fence uh some more flames so you could see where chunks of the the roof and other parts of this house that are on fire fall and of course that is a risk of spread here which these firefighters have done such a great job of preventing and they continue to do that's why they jumped into action over this way um to uh to get some a hot spot and see if they come again with this hose we're going to get out of their way so they can continue to hit this house here with water this is just one of those six homes here in Orange County that have been either damaged or, in this case, destroyed. It's hard to imagine how this could come back. It's going to have to be a complete rebuild because we've seen this massive home just come down. As you look at something like this, and we know that we've had these wind warnings for several days now, I just wonder if somebody who lives in a situation like this, up against a hillside in an area that might be prone to wind concerns, how much of the valuables when it comes to the most important things might they have been able to get out of there those important documents perhaps old family photos things that you absolutely just can't replace that's that's really all you can hope for perhaps in something like this unless they're able to save that structure enough that perhaps they might be able to go in and retrieve something of value but obviously we've seen that home continue to burn but maybe that's the idea too if they can stop the spread of this fire that something inside might be salvageable. I'm thinking back to a fire in Malibu where I had a friend whose home was burning down, one of the few homes that burned down in a certain fire. It was like the one home that burned down, and firefighters were able to get in, and she had some kind of memorabilia actually from Elvis that they were able to retrieve and bring out for her. And sometimes they'll do that. If it's safe enough for them to go into a structure, they might go in quickly and grab a few things that might seem of importance to homeowners. And I don't know, at first it was just that one portion which seemed like a tower to the right. Maybe before the house itself was on fire, that attic on fire, they could have gone in and maybe grabbed something. Perhaps the homeowners were even able to instruct them, can you grab my grandfather's painting, you know, something like that. And you see these firefighters. It really puts it all into perspective. Yeah, go ahead, Nick. Yeah, go ahead, Nick. Yeah, no, it just puts it all into perspective. Again, I think Glenn was starting to say, you know, you see these firefighters really attacking it again with these hoses. We spoke with a woman when we first pulled up on Via de Agua, which is one of the streets in between these streets that have been impacted by fire, at least with the homes. And she said that she knows so many of her neighbors who have moved away from here. Not that they've had a fire here recently, but that they know that living so close on the hillside like this, there is that risk even if you're on the coast as we've seen certainly with the Palisades fire so yeah at this hour these firefighters just continue attacking this with water we've seen so many so many gallons of water go on to this home here and now i'm looking over and just think a few people who have stuck behind in these middle neighborhoods i'm not sure if the camera can capture them but i do see people this is the first time i'm really seeing people uh in the last few hours. It's been very quiet here otherwise, just the firefighters doing their work. Well, even if they evacuated, it's just natural curiosity. If you have an investment in that neighborhood, you want to come back and see what's going on. I think too, Nick, as we look at that neighborhood, if you're up there on a hillside, a reminder of the Pacific Palisades fire, of how difficult it can be to get out of a neighborhood when you have a crush of people trying to come down a hillside. I'm wondering, and you've been there all day, so perhaps you don't have the perspective on the traffic of people trying to evacuate. That's an interesting shot right there of somebody in their backyard. Really close. Just observing things. Perhaps they're not in an area of immediate concern. Not sure. Yeah, we see those areas of this hill that continue to smolder here and we know that there could be fire underneath there, whether under the ground or under some some vegetation that could flare up at any point. We got here a little after, quite a bit after the evacuations were ordered. So I think a lot of people had gotten out of here before we got here. But it was challenging even for us to just maneuver a lot of these streets. They're very curvy hillside roads. So moving in this way took some time for us to navigate. You can imagine how it could have been to get out. Wow. You know, for the amount of water they're putting on that home, it continues to burn. Possibly maybe there's a natural gas line in there that needs to be turned off somewhere? You know I think that the gas is off but I will say Glenn earlier and it was close to the fireplace I'm not sure if it's a gas fireplace or not there was a lot of flames shooting up and it certainly looked like it could have been gas on fire earlier that I was watching I think it's just a lot of lumber and a lot of materials that are flammable I think you're finally able to see as the wind has shifted and blown that smoke away you can see the ocean right there Capistrano Beach is just a few miles away from here again a gorgeous neighborhood gorgeous home and i'm sure something that the people who lived here worked very hard for this is just heartbreaking it is and it's hard for us to see the ocean too from that perspective with the sun there and the smoke but thank you for pointing that out and just a reminder that these are multi-million dollar homes and i can imagine the people that are right next door across the street are very nervous at this hour. People up and down the block when you think, Glenn, as you talked about, the embers that can carry and get underneath those roofs and just start a house on fire. People, I'm sure, are very, very nervous right now watching this. Yeah, which is, it's critical that they attack a house like this with as much water as possible to keep those embers from flying around. And you look at the, again, look at the property next door, and it looks totally unfazed. No problem whatsoever. Let it be. Let it be. Nick, how many firefighters are up there on that hillside where you are? I've got about six or seven on this hillside here. There's probably the same amount on the other side of the home. And I would imagine on the backside where we can't see, there are also some firefighters. I've seen the hoses. But I want to just point out, you mentioned that the neighboring homes, they must be concerned. That ridge over there, again, this is moving more towards Capistrano. That ridge where you see homes there, earlier today, we saw well over a dozen people just standing there watching. I'm not seeing them now. I don't know if Gino has a better idea. Can you see them? No. We can't see them anymore, but that hillside was just lined with people watching this, and I'm sure terrified at what was going to happen, especially the winds were much stronger then. We're enjoying a calm in the winds right now. All right, let's take you to some video earlier. Of this home. Of this exact home burning. And this is where we were talking about the Phos-Chek, all that. We thought that was a red tile roof initially, almost looks like that famous hotel down in, you know, down on Coronado. And but that's Phos-Chek actually on that roof. And you see it there on the driveway. And unfortunately, even with the Foscheck, they couldn't stop this fire. Well, as we watch this fire this afternoon from the other side of the house where Nick is right now, You can see already in the main house that that attic there, that attic space, is already smoking. A big concern there. That house is already on fire. You think of the interior. And to the right of it there, that was the main part of the fire, but already the main structure of the house was already compromised. Look there. You talked about the Foscheck. Look at the strip of Phos-Chek there along that hillside. And look at the number of homes there that they are worried about at this hour with these winds and those embers. we talked about yeah and that's a perfect illustration because you see which way the smoke is blowing earlier you know homes on that other side of the neighborhood they were on fire and ember jumped and most likely landed on this home with all the Phos-Chek on it which as again as we said did did not do any good it's going to burn to the ground anyway so nick i'm wondering if we can i don't know if you can hear us now yeah so nick we're looking at the the view of the house from the air where you were at earlier we're looking at that shot where the far left of the house is on fire we see the Phos-Chek were you there when the Phos-Chek was dropped did you see that drop happen no we got here after that Phos-Chek uh was was dropped in so we we did i don't know that we saw the drop but we did see quite a couple of drops uh on this hillside as we were driving in by the time we got here i was thinking the same thing that you were i thought it was two separate houses and I was thinking gosh that one is so close to to the one that's on fire I got to say we're hearing more dropping so I think more is collapsing inside of this home which of course we've been watching as the firefighters there on the ground versus on the hillside here kind of move away of course for their safety well you kind of get a sense from the size of the home that the inside of it must have been absolutely unbelievable probably a huge staircase I think of Mattresses, sofas, paintings. Nick, did you say firefighters are moving back? They're moving back towards the house now, but periodically they have moved away from the home. And I've noticed that that is about just before we start to hear some crumbling and more collapsing. And so they're the experts out here. They know when something is going to crumble, as unpredictable as fire can be. but they move out of the way so they don't get hit by any of the roof or parts of the wall that have come down, and I've seen them do that throughout the day, taking breaks from the hose, and then we hear a collapse, and then they jump right back on it with some more water. Just staying on this shot here, you see how much water is used in a firefight. Yes, and still flames. I mean, as much water is going on this, the flames continue, and I've got to believe that the fire is getting to parts that have not been burned yet in the home. hard to believe because we see these big portions of black smoke that shoot up like it's a fresh fire. So I've got to imagine that there's just so much fuel inside the home here. Oh, like that shot right now, the top of your screen there, it's really going up on that perhaps front or other side of the house. We know there have been firefighters on the ground there on the other side as well. Nick Garcia was actually there earlier on the front of the house. There's still flames right they just hit that and I mean they've been hitting that spot really hard and the flames are continuing to burn.