A company that monitors electrical activity says outages along Los Angeles’ power grid have exploded in the same areas where three of this week’s major wildfires are currently raging.
Bob Marshall, chief executive of Whisker Labs, told Fox News Digital that the company saw a sharp increase in outages in the hours before the Eaton, Palisades and Hurst fires.
Marshall said his company has a network of about 14,000 sensors called “ting” sensors across Los Angeles that can locate and identify faults generated by arc flashes. Using its network of sensors in homes, Whisker Labs is able to monitor the power grid with “extraordinary precision and accuracy.”
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Power lines hang from broken utility poles in the middle of a street caused by the Palisades Fire on January 8, 2025 in the Pacific Palisades community in Los Angeles, California. A company that monitors electrical activity says outages along Los Angeles’ power grid have increased in the same areas where three of this week’s major wildfires are occurring. (Jay L. Clendenin/Getty Images)
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“Defects are caused by tree branches touching wires or wires being blown by the wind and touching each other. It creates a spark in a fault and we detect all these things,” Marshall explained.
Other causes include faulty ignition of electrical equipment, a sudden increase in demand or earthquakes. At the time the fires broke out, intense Santa Ana winds were blowing across Los Angeles.
The company’s data, shared with Fox News Digital, is surprising.
In the Palisades area, the largest of the fires currently raging, there were 63 faults in the two to three hours before the fire ignited, Marshall said. 18 fouls were recorded in the hour that started Tuesday.
The fire has so far burned down 12,300 homes and buildings across the region. Countywide, the death toll rose to 11 people, and officials expect that number to rise.
“In the case of the Eaton Fire near Altadena, 317 grid outages occurred in the hours leading up to the fire,” Marshall said. “And then in the Hurst fire, there were about 230 faults that we measured on the sensor network.”
He said that in a typical day there are very few mistakes.
Bob Marshall, CEO and co-founder of Whisker Labs, holding a “ting” sensor. (Fox News Digital)
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Sparks from faults can fall to the ground and ignite vegetation, creating harmony with the landscape. Strong winds then carry the flames at rapid speeds.
Investigators have yet to determine what sparked the wildfires that have decimated large areas of Los Angeles, but an increase in outages on the power grid could serve as key clues.
“The important thing is we can’t say whether any of these defects caused the fire. We don’t know,” Marshall said. “What we know from our data is that there were more and more faults in the grid in the area around which these fires started.”
He said the data shows the power supply was not cut off immediately when the faults increased.
“But again, we can’t say for sure whether any of these failures caused a fire. I want to be very, very clear about that,” he added.
Marshall said Whisker Labs has had discussions with utility companies about using its data, but currently the data is not shared.
Currently, Ting sensors notify homeowners of a power surge so they can take preventative measures to prevent house fires. Marshall said the company has a network of about a million sensors across the United States.
“A power surge can damage appliances and appliances. In the worst case scenario, it can cause a house fire,” Marshall said.
He said the “smart, super sophisticated” technology can prevent 80% of potential fires in homes.
A home is engulfed in flames during the Eaton Fire in the Altadena area of Los Angeles County, California, January 8, 2025. (JOSH EDELSON/AFP via Getty Images)
When the sensor detects a fault, the home sensor is notified via an app, then it can request an electrician to call and carry out the necessary repairs.
“We make 30 million electrical measurements every second. There is AI (artificial intelligence) in the sensor, [and] we stream data to a cloud specifically designed to detect electrical faults inside homes,” he continued. “And then the sensor network detects faults on the network, because when there is a fault on the network, it is simultaneously measured by numerous sensors. in a community. So if there is a fault in your house, that fault does not propagate to the entire community, we only detect it on a single sensor in your house. »
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Meanwhile, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power did not proactively shut off power to mitigate the risk of fire outbreaks ahead of this week’s devastating wildfires, The Wall Street Journal » reported Friday, citing regulatory documents.
The preventative measure is in place at all other major California power companies after utilities started wildfires in the past, the Journal reported.
An LADWP spokesperson told the Journal they have other safety measures in place, such as disabling technology that automatically restores power after an outage. She added that widespread preventative power outages could also harm emergency services.
Brie Stimson of Fox News contributed to this report.
