Edison denied causing a fire in the stream. The Fed said that public utilities have suppressed evidence

When the small stream exploded in the forest of Angelis in 2017, it was suspected that it was considered a reason for the power line.

Witnesses reported that at the beginning of the fire, a break -off line was seen on the high -pressure transmission tower of Xiaotu Hongga Canyon, and the investigators focused their attention there.

“There is a fire there, and the sparks are pouring out of the tower … it spreads to every direction.” A resident told the Times.

However, the federal authorities will take seven years to conclude that this fire (destroy 70 houses) is caused by Edison, Southern California.

It was not until last year that a federal investigator from the US Forest Service made data after obtaining Edison's data in 2022. The federal government filed a lawsuit saying that the public utilization giant not only caused a fire, but also detained data related to the origin of the fire. It is seeking a loss of $ 40 million.

The federal complaint said: “SCE violates nursing obligations and negligence causes the stream fire, including failure to build a safe and effective work order, maintain and operate its power cords and equipment.”

Edison denied that his equipment caused a big fire.

In 2017, the small stream burned to the night of Silma.

Compared with the fire of Los Angeles County on January 7, Creek Fire is a small thing.

Edison now conducts a strict review of Eaton Fire in January. Eaton Fire destroyed 7,000 houses and killed 17 people in the Altadner area. Witnesses reported that the fire began to see the fire under the Edison transmission tower in Eaton Canyon. The video and photos also show the earlier time of the fire, and it seems to be under the electric tower. The public business company has promised to cooperate to investigate the cause of the fire.

For lawyers who have already prosecuted, the responsibility lies in public utilities. At the same time, Edison said that it had no evidence that the equipment was responsible when the fire occurred or the fire.

A lot of cycling was performed in the survey. If the public cause is found to have faults, it will have an impact on finance. Since the outbreak of the fire, the stock price of the public institution may decline.

In view of the bet, experts say that the time for investigators is very important.

“This takes time. You can't run by just the first possible answer.

Large public utilities have been determined to be the most serious reasons for California. The camp fire in heaven (burned 153,000 acres, and killed 85 people) was caused by a high -voltage PG & E transmission line of about 100 years. The public business company pleaded guilty to 84 losses and agreed to pay $ 13.5 billion in reconciliation to the victims.

But investigations sometimes find other reasons. PG & E was also the focus of a large -scale fire in Santa Rosa in 2017, killing 22 people. But Cal Fire concluded that this is actually a private power line, not the PG & E line, which leads to a fire.

The electric tower rises from the hillside.

A “deliberate decision” to “suppress evidence”

Pay attention to Edison and Eaton's fire because the public institutional company fights against the court in court because of accusing his data on the fire.

The electric line is also the early focus of the stream fire. The fire burned more than 15,000 acres of land in the Valley of Santa Fernando and destroyed more than 100 buildings.

The preliminary investigation by the US Forest Service concluded that the fire was caused by the transmission line operated by the Los Angeles Water and Electricity Department in five weeks. However, LADWP officials said that the fire started six minutes before the power line had any disadvantages, and this fact made the investigation complicated. The survey report was publicly released in 2020. The insurance company and fire victims of LADWP provided data to Edison in April 2020, which was related to the distribution line of the Lopez Tour near the fire.

According to a memorandum in civil cases proposed by the insurance company and victims, the plaintiff did not hear that the plaintiff provided a subpoena to Edison in July. The plaintiff claimed in the memorandum that in the first document production of September, Edison did not provide relevant data. But in December, the day before the regulations expired, Edison handed over the fault data.

The plaintiff wrote in his lawsuit: “These failure data clearly records several large -scale ampere incidents on the Lopez track, which is the time for the stream to ignite.”

The plaintiff said that Edison had faulty data as early as 2018, and a few days after the outbreak.

The plaintiff wrote: “(Edison) made intentional decisions at the earliest stage of the investigation to suppress evidence and blame Ladwp responsibilities.”

The discovery of the fire changed in 2024.

“The power line or equipment owned by Edison, Southern California has experienced failure or failure, which generates sufficient heat, which can ignite the nearby vegetation, thereby providing a capable source of ignition of the stream fire,” Thomas Guzman wrote. “Evidence that has not been found any other reasons has also ruled out all other reasons.”

Edison denied this discovery.

“We don't think the SCE device involves the ignition of the small stream fire. We don't agree with the allegations of the small stream fire. We are solving this problem through appropriate court procedures.

Dunleavy did not comment on the allegations of Edison's reservation of data related to fire.

The case of Xiaoxi fire emphasizes the dependence of fire investigators to public institutions. These companies provide many data investigators to determine the cause of the fire.

In order to establish a case against Edison, Creek Fire Plantiff lawyer quoted Cal Fire's 1997 raid in the Edison office of RoseMead. At that time, Cal Fire investigators were looking for documents that might reveal the role of the public institution company that played a role in the fire of Karabasus a year ago, and was eventually found.

In secret operations, Cal Fire planted an investigator in the public business office as a student of architectural majors to formulate a flat map for the upcoming raid.

This raid led to the agreement reached between the department and the public cause about the procedures followed during the investigation of the cause of the wild fire, and it was the pain between Edison and investigators. Edison did not face criminal charges.

The lawyer said in the court document in the Creek Fire case that Edison did not comply with the 1997 agreement after the fire in 2017. On December 10, 2017, only five days after the fire occurred, the Cal Fire investigator asked to provide fault data for Edison's Lopez Circuit.

At that time, the Lopez Tour was considered to be beyond the origin of the fire, but the investigators still asked it to complete the “thorough” investigation of the fire.

Despite the requirements, Edison failed to provide data related to the Lopez Tour, which is “the main evidence, which indicates that SCE desperately trying to cover the Andbie activities.”

Michael Wara, director of the Stanford University Climate and Energy Policy Program, said: “If the allegations are correct, it seems that the failure of Edison in the system does not seem to appear.”