Lawsuits allege SoCal Edison equipment sparked Eaton Fire
Multiple lawsuits have been filed on behalf of Eaton Fire victims that claim equipment owned by Southern California Edison sparked the deadly blaze.
The lawsuits were filed Monday in Los Angeles County Superior Court.
Homeowners and victims of the Eaton Fire are among the plaintiffs in the lawsuits, which allege that SCE-owned property was the ignition source for the fire, which has burned more than 14,000 acres and claimed 11 lives in the Pasadena and Altadena area.
One of the lawsuits accuses SCE of negligence, alleging that it failed to properly inspect and secure the equipment before hurricane-force winds ran through the area last week.
Attorney Richard Bridgford, who is representing one of the plaintiffs, a homeowner, said his firm’s own investigation has led them to believe that the fire was “ignited because of SCE’s failure to de-energize its overhead wires which traverse Eaton Canyon—despite a red flag PDS wind warning.”
Another of the lawsuits, which represents multiple homeowners in the Pasadena and Altadena area who either lost their homes or were forced to evacuate, makes similar claims.
“This goes beyond a failure of responsibility—it is gross negligence in an area highly vulnerable to wildfires, especially with well-documented weather alerts and high wind risks,” said Patrick McNicholas, an attorney partner at McNicholas & McNicholas, which is representing homeowners in a separate suit.
McNicholas said the firm had met with more than 500 victims over the past week, the majority of whom experienced complete loss of their homes.
The first flames of the Eaton Fire were spotted in Eaton Canyon underneath an electrical transmission tower owned by the utility.
CalFire is investigating the tower as the possible origin of the fire, according to the Los Angeles Times.
SCE has said it does not believe that its equipment sparked the fire, writing in an incident report last week that no “electrical or operational anomalies” at the site were reported until more than an hour after the fire had already began to rage.
The utility says, to date, no fire agencies have suggested its equipment was to blame for the fire.
Downed or damaged electrical equipment have been the source of past wildfires in California, although an expert who spoke to the L.A. Times said it was too soon to tell if the Eaton Fire is the latest instance of a utility-sparked blaze.
Regardless, the lawsuits filed Monday all accuse Edison of knowing the risks of electrical equipment igniting vegetation, with one suit, McNicholas’s, accusing the utility of deliberately choosing “profits over public safety.”
Jeff Monford, a spokesman for SoCal Edison, told the Times that the company was aware of the lawsuits but had yet to receive them.