Southern California Edison faces lawsuits over LA wildfires | Business and Economic News

One suit cites multiple witnesses as having seen the fire under a utility transmission tower.

Southern California Edison, the Edison International utility, is facing multiple lawsuits alleging that electrical equipment started one of the large wildfires that have been raging in the Los Angeles area, according to court documents.

The lawsuits filed Monday appear to be the first of hundreds, if not thousands, of lawsuits to come as a result of the wildfires that have swept parts of Southern California over the past week.

The lawsuits were filed in Los Angeles Superior Court on behalf of homeowners, tenants, business owners and others whose properties were destroyed by the Eaton fire in the Pasadena area.

At least 24 people have died and more than 90,000 residents have been forced to flee their homes since the fires started last Tuesday. More than two dozen people are missing, authorities said.

The Eaton fire, which broke out in the foothills east of Los Angeles, has burned about 5,712 hectares (14,117 acres), or 57 square kilometers (22 square miles) — about the size of Manhattan. According to one complaint, this fire is the second most destructive inferno in California history.

One lawsuit cites multiple witnesses who observed a fire under a transmission tower owned by Southern California Edison.

Some of those witnesses shared videos of the incident on their social media accounts, including Instagram user @jeffrey.ku’s video of the fire under the transmission tower taken shortly after the Eaton launch. fire.

A local ABC News interviewer, Brendan Thorne, also referenced it. Thorne said in an interview that he lives near Eaton Canyon and saw “knee-high” fires around the transmission towers shortly after the fire started.

Southern California Edison did not immediately respond to Reuters’ request for comment on the allegations.

Edison International’s CEO said in a televised interview Monday morning that the company was continuing to investigate the fires and that no electrical anomalies had been detected in its equipment at the time of the Eaton fire.

“It’s pretty typical that you see sparks from the equipment,” Pedro Pizarro told CNBC when asked about the company’s investigation into the Eaton fire.

“There may be another mechanism here. “Unfortunately, we have not been able to approach the lines yet.”

Stock down

Shares of Edison International fell nearly 12 percent to $57.24 on Monday. They are down about 27 percent since last week’s fires.

SCE filed safety incident reports on the Eaton and Hurst fires on January 9 and 10, respectively.

Southern California Edison said it had received notices from insurance companies to preserve evidence related to the Eaton fire and said the fire could be traced to its utility facilities, prompting it to release its report on Jan. 9.

He also added that no firefighting agency has suggested that its electrical equipment was involved in the ignition of the fires.

However, in a Hurst report a day later, the company said they found a downed conductor in the area, but did not know if the damage occurred before or after the fire started.