In one lawsuit, several witnesses are cited as having seen a fire at the base of a transmission tower owned by the utility.
Southern California Edison, a unit of utility Edison International, has been hit with several lawsuits claiming its electrical equipment started one of the major wildfires raging in the Los Angeles area, according to filings to the court.
The lawsuits, filed Monday, appear to be the first of hundreds, if not thousands, that will arise from the wildfires that ravaged parts of Southern California in the United States last 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 since the fires began last Tuesday, and more than 90,000 residents have been forced to flee their homes. More than twenty people are missing, authorities said.
The Eaton Fire, in the foothills east of Los Angeles, has burned about 5,712 hectares (14,117 acres), or 57 square kilometers (22 square miles), almost the size of Manhattan. This fire is the second most destructive inferno in California history, according to a complaint.
In one of the lawsuits, several witnesses are cited as having observed a fire at the base of a transmission tower owned by Southern California Edison.
Some of these witnesses shared videos of the incident on their social media accounts, including a post by Instagram user @jeffrey.ku of video of a fire at the base of a transmission tower that, according to him, was taken shortly after the start of the Eaton. fire.
He was also referring to Brendan Thorn, who was interviewed by local ABC News. Thorn said in the interview that he lived near Eaton Canyon and saw fires “knee-deep” around the transmission towers shortly after the fire started.
Southern California Edison did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Reuters news agency on the lawsuits.
On Monday morning, Edison International’s CEO said in a television interview that the company was continuing its investigation into the fires and had not identified any electrical anomalies in its equipment at the time the Eaton fire broke out.
“It’s pretty common to see this when a spark comes from equipment,” Pedro Pizarro said in the CNBC interview when asked about the company’s investigation into the Eaton fire.
“There could be another mechanism here. Unfortunately, we haven’t been able to get close to the lines yet,” he said.
Stock falling
Shares of Edison International fell nearly 12 percent to $57.24 on Monday. They have fallen by about 27 percent since the fires broke out last week.
On January 9 and 10, SCE filed safety incident reports on the Eaton and Hurst fires, respectively.
Southern California Edison said it received notices from insurance companies asking it to preserve evidence related to the Eaton fire, adding that the fire could be attributable to its utility facilities, prompting it to publish its report on January 9.
He also said no fire department had suggested its electrical installations were involved in starting the fires.
However, in the Hurst report a day later, the company said it found a broken down driver in the area, but did not know whether the damage occurred before or after the fire started.
