Lawsuit Alleges SDG&E Equipment Caused Norte Fire

An Orange County resident has sued San Diego Gas & Electric, alleging faulty utility equipment caused the Norte Fire near San Clemente and San Juan Capistrano. The complaint points to an outage on SDG&E’s Circuit 197 at 11:31 a.m., two minutes before the fire was reported, and alleges the line was close to the ignition site; the lawsuit also seeks to preserve evidence. SDG&E confirmed the outage but says the fire’s cause and the outage are under investigation, and that there is currently no basis to link its equipment to the ignition. The fire burned about 570 acres, damaged or destroyed at least seven homes, and prompted evacuations that have since been lifted.