No Evidence Southern California Edison Equipment Sparked Eaton Fire, Utility Says

One of California’s largest investor-owned utilities said in a report to regulators on Thursday that there’s no evidence its equipment started the massive Eaton Fire northeast of Los Angeles, which has killed at least five people and destroyed roughly 5,000 structures.

Southern California Edison said it submitted the report to the California Public Utilities Commission “out of an abundance of caution” due to significant media attention, major property damage and notices from insurance companies that seek to preserve evidence about the fire’s possible origin.

Some articles have questioned whether SCE equipment sparked the blaze. The utility’s electrical incident report noted, however, that “to date, no fire agency has suggested that SCE’s electric facilities were involved in the ignition or requested the removal and retention of any SCE equipment” as evidence.

The company also said a preliminary analysis of data for a high-voltage transmission line in the area showed “no interruptions or electrical anomalies” until more than an hour after the Eaton fire started Tuesday evening.

The CPUC requires power utilities to file incident reports when their equipment causes more than $50,000 of damage or, in cases like the Eaton Fire, when there is widespread media interest in a blaze that power lines may have caused.

The electrical incident reports are often the first sign that a utility’s equipment may have been involved in starting a fire. That was the case when PG&E reported in November 2018 that a transmission line in the Feather River was under investigation for starting the Camp Fire — California’s deadliest and most destructive wildfire to date.

The incident reports, which may be issued days after an incident occurs, usually summarize fire investigators’ interest in a utility’s equipment.

When a PG&E equipment failure was implicated in starting the 2021 Dixie Fire — the single largest wildland fire in the state’s history — the company’s incident report stated that Cal Fire investigators had visited the ignition site to collect sections of the involved power line and other equipment as well as a section of a burned tree.