Southern California Edison faces lawsuit over Los Angeles wildfires Business & Economics News
In a lawsuit, multiple witnesses said they saw a fire break out at the base of a transmission tower owned by the utility.
Southern California Edison, a unit of Edison International Utility Co., has been hit with multiple lawsuits alleging that its electrical equipment sparked a major wildfire raging in the Los Angeles area, according to court documents.
The lawsuits filed Monday appear to be the first of hundreds, if not thousands, to come out of the wildfires that have devastated parts of Southern California over the past week.
The lawsuits were filed in Los Angeles Superior Court on behalf of homeowners, renters, business owners and others whose properties were destroyed in the Eaton Fire in the Pasadena area.
Since the fire broke out last Tuesday, at least 24 people have died and more than 90,000 residents have been forced to flee their homes. More than two dozen people were reported missing, authorities said.
The Eaton Fire in the foothills east of Los Angeles has burned about 5,712 hectares (14,117 acres) or 57 square kilometers (22 square miles), an area nearly the size of Manhattan. That fire was the second most destructive in California history, according to a complaint.
In one of the lawsuits, multiple witnesses reported seeing a fire break out at the base of a transmission tower owned by Southern California Edison.
Some of those witnesses shared videos of the incident on their social media accounts, including a video of a fire at the base of a transmission tower posted by Instagram user @jeffrey.ku, which he said was filmed shortly after Eaton started the fire.
It also mentioned Brendan Thorn, who was interviewed by local ABC News. Thorne said in the interview that he lives near Eaton Canyon and saw “knee-high” fires around transmission towers shortly after the fire.
Southern California Edison did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment on the lawsuit.
Edison International's CEO said in a television interview Monday morning that the company was continuing to investigate the fire and had not found any electrical anomalies in its equipment around the time of the Eaton fire.
“It's typical when you see sparks from equipment,” Pedro Pizarro told CNBC when asked about the company's investigation into the Eaton fire. ”
“There may be some other mechanisms here. Unfortunately, we're not close to the finish line yet,” he said.
Inventory decline
Shares of Edison International fell nearly 12% to $57.24 on Monday. That number has dropped by about 27% since the fires broke out last week.
SCE submitted safety incident reports for the Eaton fire and the Hurst fire on January 9 and 10, respectively.
Southern California Edison said it received notice from its insurance company to preserve evidence related to the Eaton fire, adding that the fire could be attributed to its utility, prompting the company to issue the Jan. 9 report.
It added that no fire agency had linked its electrical facilities to the fire.
However, in a Hearst report a day later, the company noted that they found a downed conductor in the area but did not know if the damage occurred before or after the fire.