Dive Brief:

• Equipment owned by Southern California Edison may have been associated with at least one of the wildfires that broke out in the Los Angeles area last month, according to documents filed Thursday with the California Public Utilities Commission.
• The company is investigating a possible link to the Eaton Fire in Altadena, California, but has so far not identified clear evidence that its equipment was involved in the fire's ignition, according to Pedro Pizarro, president and CEO of SCE parent company Edison International.
• SCE believes that its equipment may have been associated with the smaller Hurst Fire in Sylmar, a suburb northwest of Altadena.

Dive Insight:

Videos of the early stages of the Eaton Fire are “concerning” and “may suggest a possible link to SCE's equipment,” Pizarro said in a video statement released Thursday. But evidence gathered so far in the company's investigation of the fire has yet to establish a likely cause of the blaze, which burned 14,000 acres, destroyed 9,400 structures and killed 17 civilians, according to the the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

“The review is complex because it is focused on potential causes that are rare and not those typically observed in connection with ignitions associated with energized facilities, such as faults on the line where the ignition occurred, vegetation that comes into contact with lines or readily observable equipment failures,” SCE wrote in documents filed with the CPUC.

According to the company’s filings, video evidence first released in connection with a New York Times article and later verified by SCE appears to show two flashes of light in Eaton Canyon, where the fire is believed to have originated. However, SCE says it has not identified any signs of arcing on equipment located within the canyon.

Instead, SCE has found evidence of potential arcing and other damage to the grounding equipment on two idle conductors located about five circuit miles from the area the fire is believed to have started. The company told the CPUC it has not yet established when this damage occurred.

Electrical data from the four energized transmission lines that run through Eaton Canyon showed no anomalies until one hour after the reported start time of the fire, according to SCE. SCE's system protection devices locked out multiple transmission lines following the fire's ignition. Electrical workers who were assigned to observe the lines reported flashes of white light when the transmission lines in Eaton Canyon were re-energized; the lines were proactively de-energized on Jan. 20 due to high winds and have remained de-energized since, according to the CPUC filings.

The company has also collected and preserved evidence of an encampment in Eaton Canyon, according to the filings.

SCE has reported damage to insulator strings, conductors and other hardware associated with transmission towers near an area north of Saddle Ridge Road, where fire officials believe the Hurst Fire originated. Based on the evidence so far, SCE believes its equipment may have been associated with the ignition of the smaller fire, which SCE believes burned 799 acres and damaged two homes.

The company is cooperating with state and county officials who are investigating the fires, and with attorneys for plaintiffs who have filed suit against SCE, according to documents released Thursday. SCE did not say how many suits have been filed so far.

The fires also damaged SCE facilities, but the company has not yet released an estimate of how much damage it sustained.