Crews making progress in containing Norte Fire

From fire danger to a midweek storm, more weather whiplash for Southern California. First, incredible stories of survival tonight as residents return to what's left after the Norte Fire scorched the San Juan Capistrano area last week. Several homes damaged or lost, but neighbors say it could have been far worse. Fox 11's Rachel Aragon live there in San Juan Capistrano with the update. Rachel. Hey, Kristen. Yeah, as you probably well know, at its peak here, the Norte Fire deploying about 800 people or so to try to mitigate and fight the fire. Now we have about 300 personnel out here putting out hot spots and making sure everything is completely out. And while seven homes were destroyed right here or damaged in San Juan Capistrano, many residents I spoke to say they're just grateful it was not a lot worse. Heroes, total heroes, they saved this whole area, they really did. This is Nancy Finley applauding the hundreds of firefighters from Orange County and nearby counties who had been working to contain the Norte fire. It was scary, we didn't have a second. We just got in our car, grabbed a few things and left. Nancy lives on Via La Mirada, just a few yards away from where several homes burned down in San Juan Capistrano. She was one of many who had no time to pack and forced to evacuate immediately as flames and smoke quickly encroached her property and her neighbors. The guy that was working on my pool, he was not coming, he goes, You better look at this, because otherwise I wouldn't have known, because it happened so fast, because it's so fast. Nancy returned to her home of nearly 40 years last night. While a total of seven homes were damaged or destroyed in the Norte fire, officials say remarkably no residents were injured. Of course, yes, but then of course you always think about your neighbors, but it's just a miracle that it wasn't worse, in my opinion. But they did an amazing job up there. While containment grows, firefighters are still hard at work with suppression repair efforts, putting out hot spots, and getting out the message to sign up for critical alerts. No matter what county you're in, every county has a reverse 911 system. So here in Orange County, Alert OC will immediately notify you through your home line, your cell phone, your computer. Orange County Fire Authority says while all evacuation orders tied to the Norte fire have been lifted, they wanna make sure residents know their evacuation zone for the next big natural disaster or emergency. What happens is that'll go out and it'll tell you like in City of San Clemente, it said zones 12 and 13 were an immediate evacuation zone area. And then in San Juan Capistrano, it was zones four, five and ten. A lot of people didn't know what zone, so it did cause some confusion. So now is the time, find out what evacuation zones and sign up for alert OC. Now officials are still investigating the cause of the fire, but we can tell you though and confirm just now that a new lawsuit being filed though is blaming the destructive Norte fire. They say being caused by San Diego Gas and electric equipment failure. You got a new lawsuit being filed today. I did speak to the attorneys with that firm. They are representing one of the residents here in the area that had to evacuate. But Christine, what I'm learning from these attorneys right now and this lawsuit, They say the timing of this power outage or outage or equipment failure, if you will, coincided with the time of when this fire broke out more or less. They're looking more into that. But I can also tell you the law firm though that is representing this client, this resident in the area also was involved in the Eaton fire when it comes to litigations against Southern California Edison as well. So this law firm though does have experience when it comes to wildfire cases. Again, officials here on the ground though, they're still investigating the cause of the fire. but according to this new complaint that was just filed today they're alleging it was some kind of failure of equipment upon San Diego Gas and Electric, well I do like the news of 60 contained that part is some welcome news. Our Rachel, thanks so much