Los Angeles County has filed a lawsuit against Southern California Edison (SCE) and its parent company alleging the company is responsible for the massive Eaton fire that claimed more than a dozen lives and has already cost hundreds of millions of dollars in cleanup and recovery efforts.
The Eaton fire burned over 14,000 acres, destroyed nearly 10,000 structures and claimed the lives of 17 people, as well as injuring dozens of firefighters.
The plaintiffs in the case allege, on the basis of witnesses, photographs and video evidence, that the Eaton fire began when an SCE transmission line in Eaton Canyon sparked a fire in surrounding vegetation. SCE had failed to turn off its electrical circuits, despite there being a red-flag warning.
“The Eaton Fire was not the result of an ‘act of God’ or other force majeure. The Eaton Fire was ignited by sparks from high-voltage transmission lines, distribution lines, appurtenances, and other electrical equipment within EDISON’s utility infrastructure that ignited surrounding vegetation,” the lawsuit states.
SCE notified the California Public Utilities Commission of a fault on its transmission line at the time of the fire, and later sent photographic evidence to the Utilities Commission acknowledging evidence of arcing and damage to the grounding equipment of two conductors on the Mesa-Sylmar transmission line.
“EDISON had a duty to properly maintain and operate its electrical infrastructure, including any equipment that has been decommissioned, yet failed to do so,” the complaint reads.
“Further, EDISON had a duty to ensure that flammable vegetation surrounding its infrastructure was maintained and had a duty to utilize public safety power shutoffs when weather conditions made it unsafe to keep its equipment energized and to otherwise ensure that its electrical equipment operated in a safe manner but failed to do so.”
Back in January, in the days after the fires began, an increase in power-grid faults was reported to have taken place in the hours before the three major fires that ravaged the Los Angeles area.
There was a significant increase in electrical faults before the Eaton, Palisades and Hurst fires, according to Whisker Labs, a company that specializes in monitoring electrical systems. Whisker CEO Bob Marshall told Fox News that the company’s network of over 10,000 sensors across the city detected a surge in faults.
“Faults are caused by tree limbs touching wires or wires blowing in the wind and touching. That creates a spark in a fault, and we detect all of those things,” Marshall explained. Faults can also be caused by equipment catching fire, increases in demand and earthquakes.
In the area where the Palisades fire broke out, 63 faults were recorded in the three hours before the fire. Eighteen faults were logged during the hour before the fire.
In Eaton, 317 faults were recorded, and in Hurst, 230.