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

In another case, several witnesses are said to have seen a fire at the base of a transportation tower owned by the corporation.

Southern California Edison, the utility unit of Edison International, has been hit with multiple lawsuits alleging its electrical equipment started a massive wildfire that swept through the Los Angeles area, according to court filings.

These lawsuits, filed on Monday, appear to be the first of hundreds or thousands of wildfires that have engulfed parts of Southern California in the United States over the past week.

The lawsuits were filed in Los Angeles Superior Court on behalf of homeowners, renters, 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 started last Tuesday, and more than 90,000 residents have been forced to flee their homes. More than two dozen people were reported missing, authorities said.

The Eaton fire in the mountains east of Los Angeles has burned about 5,712 hectares (14,117 acres), or 57 sq km (22 miles) – about the size of Manhattan. That fire is the second deadliest in California history, according to one complaint.

In one of the suits, multiple witnesses allegedly saw a fire at the base of a tower owned by Southern California Edison.

Some of those witnesses shared videos of the incident on their social media accounts, including a post by Instagram user @jeffrey.ku of a video of the fire under the delivery tower that he said was taken shortly after Eaton’s start. fire.

It also referred to Brendan Thorn, who was interviewed by ABC News. Thorn said in an interview that he lives near Eaton Canyon and saw flames “reaching high” around the transmission towers as soon as the fire started.

Southern California Edison did not immediately respond to a Reuters news agency request for comment on the lawsuits.

On Monday morning, the CEO of Edison International in a TV interview that the company continues to investigate the fires and did not identify any electrical disturbances in its equipment when the Eaton fire broke out.

“It’s normal to see those when you have a spark from the equipment,” Pedro Pizarro said during a CNBC interview when asked about the company’s investigation into the Eaton fire.

“There may be another way here. Unfortunately, we have not been able to get close to the line,” he said.

Stock down

Shares of Edison International fell nearly 12 percent to $57.24 on Monday. They are down 27% since the fires broke out last week.

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

Southern California Edison said it has received notices from insurance companies to preserve evidence related to the Eaton fire, adding that the fire may have been caused by its utilities, which led to its January 9 report.

It also added that no firefighting organization has ever suggested that its power plants are involved in the ignition of this fire.

However, a day after Hurst’s report, the company noted that it had found a fallen conductor in the area but did not know if the damage occurred before or after the fire started.