GLENDALE, Calif. (news agencies) — Southern California Edison on Monday reported a fault on a power line connected miles away from ones located near the origin of the Eaton Fire, the deadly blaze that ignited outside of Los Angeles on Jan. 7 and killed at least 17 people.
Edison says that there is still no evidence that its equipment caused the blaze, which has destroyed more than 9,000 structures in and around the community of Altadena. The official investigation into the fire’s cause has not been completed.
The utility’s new filing with the California Public Utilities Commission comes on the same day as a court hearing in a case filed by attorneys for a homeowner whose property was destroyed in the fire. The attorneys allege the utility’s equipment sparked the fire, pointing to video taken during the fire’s early minutes that shows large flames beneath electrical towers.
The attorneys have now introduced new video they say shows arcing and electrical sparking on a transmission tower in Eaton Canyon just before the wind whipped the fire into a fast-moving and destructive blaze. They say the video came from security footage of a gas station.
The Eaton Fire was one of two massive and deadly blazes that sparked on Jan. 7 amid hurricane-force winds that whipped across the parched Los Angeles region. At least 28 people have died and firefighters have continued battling the blazes for weeks. The Eaton Fire is now nearly contained, meaning firefighters almost have it surrounded, as the region gets its first rain in months.
In its new filing, Edison reported that the fault occurred at 6:11 p.m. While those lines that experienced the fault do not traverse Eaton Canyon, they are connected to the system, which did experience a surge, the utility reported.
“Preliminary analysis shows that, because SCE’s transmission system is networked, the fault on this geographically distant line caused a momentary and expected increase in current on SCE’s transmission system, including on the four energized lines (in the fire area),” SCE’s filing said. “The current increase remained within the design limits and operating criteria for these circuits and, as intended, did not trigger system protection on these lines.”
Attorneys for Altadena resident Evangeline Iglesias argued that, together, the fault and gas station video provide “evidence that SCE’s equipment in Eaton Canyon was the source of the initial ignition, and there is a near-certainty that physical evidence of the cause exists somewhere along the SCE transmission lines that run parallel to the line on the tower that erupted in flame.”
Video and photos taken by residents also captured flames beneath Edison’s electrical towers in the Eaton Canyon area in the early minutes of the fire. One resident said he heard a loud pop at the outset of the conflagration.
Kathleen Dunleavy, a spokesperson for Southern California Edison, said the company received the footage of the gas station video from The New York Times on Saturday night and contacted authorities to ensure they had the video as well. She said it was premature for them to comment on the footage as experts investigated what caused the blaze.
“As of today, January 26, no one knows what caused the Eaton Fire,” Dunleavy said in an email Sunday. “Our investigation is ongoing, and we will continue our longstanding commitment to transparency.”
Iglesias’ attorneys have accused the utility of destroying evidence. A judge last week ordered Edison to preserve evidence in the area, concerned that the utility is discarding equipment that may hold clues to the fire’s origin.
SCE’s attorneys say the company has preserved evidence in the area where the fire originated as its crews work to restore power to about 2,000 homes in Altadena that are still dark.
In an earlier filing to the CPUC, Edison reported two days after the fire started that it had not received any suggestions that its equipment was involved in the ignition.
“Preliminary analysis by SCE of electrical circuit information for the energized transmission lines going through the area for 12 hours prior to the reported start time of the fire shows no interruptions or electrical or operational anomalies until more than one hour after the reported start time of the fire,” the utility reported.
This assertion was repeated in the utility’s Monday filing.
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