Eaton Fire Focus Attention begins at Southern California Edison

In the early evening of January 7th, a resident of a neighborhood in the San Gabriel Mountains in Southern California saw what he described as a bright white light, and then a small fire at the base. an electric tower there. Eaton Canyon. Another neighbor reported that his lights flashed minutes before he saw fire under the tower.

So far, many clues to the origin of the deadly Eaton fire, which broke out in the area just after 6 p.m. that evening and killed 17 people, have pointed to the bushy hillside where tangled power lines until reaching Eaton Canyon.

However, Southern California Edison, the utility that operates the electricity infrastructure in most of the Los Angeles area, said there were no records of power failures on the lines. around it, and three low power distribution lines in the area already exist. de-energize long before the fire.

Although it may take months for investigators to determine the official cause, growing evidence is emerging that suggests the fire started in dry grass under a series of transmission towers carrying power lines. The route was battered that evening with winds reaching 100 miles per hour at times.

A new video, captured by a surveillance camera at a gas station less than a kilometer south of the tower, appears to provide an important new clue: Backing up what residents have seen, it shows flashes of light in at 6:11 p.m. in the vicinity of the three-story electrical tower in Eaton Canyon, and then caught fire a short time later.

The location of the flash, which was verified by The New York Times using photos and video taken from the location of the original surveillance footage, can help determining whether a power line played a role in igniting the deadliest fire that continues to burn across the region. Los Angeles area.

High-voltage transmission lines still had power amid the fire, despite Edison’s instructions that engineers should consider cutting power when winds exceeded 68 to 90 miles per hour. .

Edison officials said they did not see the new video until The Times shared it with them and urged that it be immediately returned to investigators.

“It needs analysis,” said Kathleen Dunleavy, a spokeswoman for the utility. “This is an ongoing investigation and all information is important. We are fully cooperating with the investigation and committed to the full process. “

Neither video nor other evidence clearly shows what started the fire. But various photos and videos from the scene, along with interviews with witnesses, investigators, firefighters and outside experts, all point to the fire starting near the base of one of the utility towers and began to spread rapidly.

The issue has huge implications for who – if anyone – will be held responsible for the fires, which have damaged or destroyed more than 10,000 homes and could lead to financial losses estimated by Verisk, an auditing firm. , worth 10 billion dollars.

Pacific Gas & Electric, California’s largest utility, filed for bankruptcy protection in 2019 after racking up $30 billion in losses from wildfires over the years. The deadliest wildfire, the 2018 wildfire, devastated the town of Paradise and led PG&E to plead guilty to 84 counts of involuntary manslaughter.

The parent company of Southern California Edison has seen its stock drop more than 26 percent this year as questions grow about its potential liability. But California enacted controversial legislation in 2019, led by Gov. Gavin Newsom, protecting the state’s public from liability after wildfires, and effectively bailing out PG&E after the wildfires.

In the days after the fire, Edison insisted that there was no evidence to support the idea that a malfunction of his equipment caused the Eaton fire.

“We don’t see electrical anomalies until more than an hour after the fire starts,” said Pedro Pizarro, president and chief executive officer of Edison International, the parent company of Southern California Edison. in this month’s interview. . “And we don’t see any anomalies until an hour, more than an hour” after the fire started.

Eyewitness reports of the fire around the transmission tower may have been caused by human activity below the line, Edison officials said.

A video recently shared with The Times, recorded at 6:14 p.m. from a home on Kinclair Drive in the Kinneloa Mesa neighborhood near Eaton Canyon, shows the first stage of the fire directly under one of the electrical towers.

Max Belin, whose house overlooks the electric tower, was the neighbor who saw the lightning, followed by a small fire at the base of the tower. Another neighbor, Brendan Thorn, said that when he first saw the fire, “all four legs of the tower were blown off”.

Several transmission towers stand in the hills above Altadena, an unincorporated community northeast of Los Angeles that bore the brunt of the fire. The Times was able to confirm the location of the three towers near the blaze by comparing the 6:14 p.m. video and others taken at the same time, along with the location watched by witnesses from 10 locations in the surrounding area.

The group of towers was discolored, and the wreckage beneath it, which was found days later, was unlike any other tower The Times visited in nearby burned areas.

Whisker Labs, a Maryland technology company with sensors that can detect abnormal activity in electrical wires, detected an electrical fault in the general area at 6 p.m.

Edison’s account changed. Initially, a few days after the fire started, Mr. Pizarro said that there was no electrical problem in the area for 12 hours before the fire. But last week, the utility said that while the transmission line running through Eaton Canyon was fine, a fault was measured at 6:11 p.m. at one of the five gas stations. miles.

As a precaution, Southern California Edison cut power to three substations serving Kinneola Mesa just before 4 p.m. on Jan. 7, more than two hours before the fire started. .

But the utilities kept the power of the high-voltage transmission lines, each carrying 220 kilovolts of electricity.

Problems during wind often occur with smaller distribution lines, which often run on wooden poles and are less windproof than the heavy metal towers that carry high-voltage transmission lines.

But problems are known to occur with stronger transmission lines as well. In previous fires, the transmission equipment overheated when those high-speed lines developed large defects and began to bend, said Robert McCullough of McCullough Research, a consulting firm based in Portland, Ore., which reviewed records and data there at the request of the Times.

During arcing, electricity jumps from one point to another, and the line can flash and crack. When this happens, the metal on the steel tower can reach a temperature of up to 1,500 degrees, melting the wooden pieces of the tower, the bolts of the structure or the aluminum wires. Molten metal falls to the ground and can cause brush fires.

“Arcing can start a fire, and obviously it depends a lot on what’s under that pole at the time,” said Shawn Zimmermaker, deputy chief of law enforcement for the area. north of Cal Fire, the state fire department. “That will be one motive that investigators will look at, but all possible motives will be looked at.” He confirmed that he was not involved in the investigation.

Cal Fire investigators were seen at the transmission tower on Jan. 14, a week after the fire, combing the area with metal detectors.

Southern California Edison’s decision to shut off power to Kinneola Mesa, a community of more than 1,000 residents that lost many homes in a 1993 fire, was based on several conditions. including weather forecasts and soil conditions, Edison officials said. .

“We have strict measures,” Mr. Pizarro said. “What are the potential risks to the area, the potential consequences?” And then what are the ambient conditions? Let’s say, you know, moisture in the air? What is the moisture or oil content, you know, around the site? And most importantly, what is the current wind speed?”

Cutting power on transmission lines is a major step, which can lead to widespread power outages. So Mr. Pizarro said the threshold for cutting the transmission line was high, and Edison never said it was necessary. “We know there’s probably something we don’t understand right now,” he said.

At least a dozen lawsuits with multiple plaintiffs have been filed against Edison on behalf of people who lost their homes or lost their lives, signaling a long legal battle ahead.

Last week, a state judge ordered the utility to produce “data from the low-power distribution areas closest to the original source area in Eaton Canyon.”

Edison initially rejected efforts to preserve the data, writing in a letter to attorneys that it was “not aware of any information or evidence that” could have been linked to the fire. Eaton burned the company’s “electrical facility in Altadena.”

However, the investor’s investment is protected against the full extent of damages under the 2019 law. it’s also a $21 billion fund that companies can access after a fire, if the damage exceeds $1 billion.

Loretta Lynch, an attorney and former chair of the California Public Utilities Commission, and a longtime critic of the law, said the law ensures that California ratepayers and taxpayers will cover the portion of the responsibility when the fire damage increases, even if the investment is found. be responsible.

“It’s a device’s dream,” he said.

Arijeta Lajka SY Devon Lum contributed to the report.