Roberto Delgado and his spouse have been praying the rosary on the evening of Jan. 7 once they heard two loud booms that shook their Sylmar dwelling. Then got here a flash of sunshine so vivid that at nighttime they may briefly see out their window the rocks and gullies of the San Gabriel foothills behind their home.
Seconds later, Delgado mentioned in an interview, the couple noticed flames below two electrical transmission towers owned by Southern California Edison — much more surprising as a result of they’d seen a fireplace ignite below a kind of towers simply six years earlier than.
“We were traumatized,” he mentioned. “It was almost the exact same thing.” In each fires, the household was compelled to race to their automobile and flee with few belongings because the flames rushed by the comb towards their dwelling, which survived each blazes.
Edison’s upkeep of its energy strains is now below scrutiny within the wake of January’s devastating Eaton hearth, which destroyed a large swath of Altadena and killed 19 individuals. Video captured by eyewitnesses reveals the Eaton hearth igniting below Edison transmission towers.
A lawsuit making its manner by Los Angeles County Superior Court docket is elevating new questions on Edison’s function within the 2019 Saddle Ridge hearth in Sylmar and whether or not the corporate was clear about the reason for the blaze. The fireplace killed at the least one particular person and destroyed or broken greater than 100 properties and different constructions. Firefighters have been in a position to include the more moderen Sylmar hearth, known as Hurst, earlier than any properties have been destroyed.
The attorneys contend that each fires have been brought on by the identical drawback: an improperly grounded transmission line operating by the foothills of Sylmar that Edison failed to repair, which the corporate denies.
In a courtroom submitting, the attorneys included a deposition they took of an L.A. Hearth Division captain who mentioned he believed that Edison was “deceptive” for not informing the division that its gear failed simply minutes earlier than the 2019 blaze ignited, and for having an worker provide to purchase key surveillance video from that evening from a enterprise subsequent to one in every of its towers.
Edison has flatly disputed the attorneys’ assertions, calling their claims in regards to the 2019 hearth an “exotic ignition theory” based mostly on “an unproven narrative.”
Kathleen Dunleavy, a spokeswoman for Edison, mentioned that the utility had complied with the requests of investigators trying into the 2 fires and that “there is no connection” between the incidents.
Dunleavy mentioned Edison didn’t inform the fireplace division in regards to the failure of its gear in 2019 as a result of it occurred at a tower miles away from the place the fireplace ignited. And he or she mentioned it’s common for any investigator to hunt to acquire video that would assist in an investigation. “SCE’s investigator did not offer to buy surveillance video,” she mentioned.
“We follow the law. Period,” she mentioned.
Dunleavy mentioned the corporate has accomplished checks that present the transmission line is protected. She declined to share the outcomes and pointed to testimony by Edison’s knowledgeable within the case — Don Russell, a Texas A&M professor {of electrical} engineering — who mentioned the road was correctly grounded.
As for the Jan. 7 Hurst hearth, the utility informed regulators in a February letter that it believes its gear “may be associated with the ignition” of the blaze. The letter mentioned the corporate discovered two conductors on the bottom below a Sylmar tower. The repairs, the letter mentioned, included changing gear at a number of towers and greater than three miles of cable.
Delgado and Perez say that on the evening of the fireplace they heard two loud booms and a flash of sunshine so vivid they may briefly see out their window the rocks and gullies of the San Gabriel foothills.
(Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Occasions)
Undergrounding of towers questioned
In dispute is whether or not the failure of metal gear on the prime of an Edison transmission tower on the evening of Oct. 10, 2019, triggered a large energy surge throughout the system, leading to a number of towers changing into electrified and intensely scorching.
The tower, the place the metal half referred to as a y-clevis broke, sits simply off the 210 freeway in Sylmar on land shared with a nursery. The Edison tower behind Delgado’s dwelling the place investigators say the 2019 hearth ignited is greater than two miles away from the nursery.
The attorneys mentioned in courtroom submitting that Edison made a “cost-saving choice” when constructing the transmission line in 1970 to not embrace “any purposeful grounding devices” that might allow energy surges to dissipate down the tower and into the earth. As a substitute, the corporate used “only insufficient concrete footings,” the attorneys mentioned of their submitting.
Mark Felling, {an electrical} engineer and paid knowledgeable within the case, testified that he discovered that the scale of the cement footings below the towers alongside the road diverse by an element of 10. The dimensions of the footings, he mentioned,impacts whether or not the tower is correctly grounded.
Felling mentioned he believed {that a} sudden energy surge may trigger some towers to grow to be “electrified and potentially very hazardous.”
Edison has disputed that concept and mentioned in courtroom that {the electrical} surge brought on by the failure of kit on the tower by the nursery safely dispersed. The utility mentioned it was scientifically not possible that {the electrical} surge triggered a fireplace 2½ miles away.
“The undisputed material facts cannot support plaintiff’s theory that SCE caused the Saddleridge fire,” the corporate wrote in a movement this month, which requested the decide to dismiss the case. A listening to on the movement is scheduled for Oct. 6.
Edison’s movement included a duplicate of the L.A. Hearth Division’s investigation, which included new particulars of how the corporate responded to fireplace investigators days after the 2019 hearth.
Delgado mentioned his rosary and prayers have been vital to surviving the fires.
(Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Occasions)
Failure to report energy surge
L.A. Hearth investigator Robert Value arrived on the grime street main as much as the hillside transmission line the place the fireplace had ignited the evening earlier than to see the yellow crime scene tape mendacity on the bottom and an Edison truck driving out, Value mentioned in his report.
Value additionally wrote that Edison’s gear recorded a fault that resulted in a surge of electrical energy about three minutes earlier than Delgado reported the fireplace to 911 at 9 p.m. However the firm didn’t inform the Hearth Division in regards to the fault, Value wrote.
Halloran traced the flash to a transmission tower constructed on land utilized by Ornelas Wooden Restoration Nursery. Halloran interviewed workers on the nursery, who informed him that an Edison worker had provided to purchase the surveillance footage from the nursery’s digital camera, in line with a deposition Halloran later offered to attorneys representing the victims.
A nursery worker additionally had taken photographs of the damaged metal gear he discovered on the foot of the tower, in line with Value’s report. The worker informed Halloran that an Edison crew got here the day after the fireplace and cleaned up the shattered items.
Halloran mentioned within the deposition, in line with a June courtroom submitting, that the corporate’s failure to report the fault and its provide to purchase the nursery’s surveillance video made him imagine that the corporate’s actions have been “deceptive.”
Value mentioned in his report that he additionally noticed Edison crews cleansing the towers alongside the road three days after the fireplace’s begin. An Edison worker informed him that the utility cleans the towers every year however had determined to wash them that day “because they were dirty from the smoke and fire,” Value wrote.
The cleansing didn’t stop hearth investigators from discovering burn marks on the backside of a second tower not removed from the place Delgado and his spouse reside, which Value mentioned could also be associated to the “catastrophic failure” of kit on the tower by the nursery.
In his last conclusion on the fireplace, Value wrote that it was “outside my expertise” to find out whether or not the failure of kit on the tower above the nursery “could cause high voltage to travel back through the conductors … and cause a fire, possibly through the tower’s grounding system” greater than two miles away.
“Therefore the cause will be undetermined,” Value wrote.
Dunleavy mentioned that Edison had notified the California Public Utilities Fee in regards to the hearth earlier than it started cleansing up the damaged items of kit discovered below the tower on the nursery. That cleanup and the corporate’s repairs, Dunleavy mentioned, have been wanted to “ensure safety and reliability” of the road.
She added that it was frequent observe for utilities to scrub down gear after a fireplace earlier than the system was reenergized.
In response to an L.A. Hearth investigator, Edison’s gear recorded a fault that resulted in a surge of electrical energy about three minutes earlier than Delgado reported the fireplace to 911 at 9 p.m.
(Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Occasions)
State utility investigators discover violations
Additionally investigating the 2019 hearth within the days after its begin was Eric Ujiiye on the Public Utilities Fee.
The fee’s security workers investigates fires which will have been brought on by electrical strains to find out whether or not the utility violated security rules.
Ujiiye mentioned in his report that he discovered that Edison violated 5 rules, together with failing to soundly keep its gear on the tower by the nursery.
Despite the fact that Value’s investigation for the L.A. Hearth Division said that the trigger is undetermined, Ujiiye mentioned in his report that he believed that the failure of kit on the tower by the nursery “could have led to a fire ignition” on the pylon greater than two miles away.
The fee’s workers requested Edison to carry out checks to indicate that the towers on the road have been correctly grounded. In response to a written response from Edison, the utility objected to the request as “vague and ambiguous.” However the firm agreed to do the checks, which might be noticed by the fee inspectors.
Terrie Prosper, a spokeswoman for the fee, mentioned that the company’s workers was planning to satisfy with Edison on the transmission line to witness the checks. Nonetheless, COVID-19 pandemic restrictions delayed that assembly and the requested undergrounding checks. She mentioned that fee workers later realized that Edison had carried out comparable checks quickly after the fireplace. These check outcomes “sufficed,” Prosper mentioned, and the corporate “was not made to re-do the tests.”
Prosper mentioned the fee didn’t nice or in any other case penalize Edison for the 5 violations as a result of the LAFD report mentioned the trigger was undetermined. She mentioned firm had corrected the violations.
April Maurath Sommer, govt director of the Wild Tree Basis, which has challenged Edison’s requests to have utility prospects pay for hearth damages, questioned the fee’s dealing with of the 2019 hearth.
“You would think that the Public Utilities Commission would use fines to address really egregious behavior in the hope it would deter future behavior that causes catastrophic fires,” she mentioned.
Maurath Sommer famous that Edison has been repeatedly discovered to have didn’t cooperate with investigators trying into the reason for devastating fires. For instance, fee investigators mentioned in a report that the utility refused to supply photographs and different particulars of what its workers discovered on the website the place the Woolsey hearth ignited in 2018. The Edison crew was the primary to reach on the scene of the fireplace that destroyed a whole lot of properties in Malibu. Edison argued that the proof was protected by attorney-client privilege.
Edison’s Dunleavy mentioned the allegation by fee investigators was later resolved. “We take our obligation to cooperate with the CPUC seriously,” she mentioned.
Prosper of the fee mentioned, “Public safety is, and will remain, our top priority,”
1. Hearth fighters stored an eye fixed on the wild hearth burning behind Olive View Medical Middle. (Irfan Khan/Los Angeles Occasions) 2. A firefighting aircraft drops crimson Phos-Chek, a fireplace retardant, to guard Olive View Medical Middle from wind pushed Saddle Ridge wild hearth in October 2019. (Irfan Khan/Los Angeles Occasions) 3. Interstate 5 and California State Rute 14 have been closed to site visitors by Newhall Cross because of the Saddle Ridge hearth. (Irfan Khan/Los Angeles Occasions) 4. Firefighters cleared brush and mopped up a hillside alongside California State Freeway 14 as a result of hearth in 2019. (Irfan Khan/Los Angeles Occasions)
One other hearth in Sylmar
At about 10:30 on the evening of Jan. 7, Katherine Twohy heard a loud crack and noticed a vivid flash. Edison’s transmission towers in Sylmar skirt across the fringe of the Oakridge Cell Dwelling Park, the place Twohy, a retired psychologist, lives.
“I was just coming in my back door and there was just this incredible flashing of white lights,” Twohy mentioned. “Incredibly blue-white lights.”
She walked to her lounge window the place she will be able to see two Edison towers, that are separated by greater than 100 yards. Twohy mentioned she may see flames on the base of every one.
“The fires had made little circles around the base,” she mentioned.
Twohy mentioned she noticed flames below the identical towers the evening the Saddle Ridge hearth ignited in 2019.
“I thought, ‘Oh my god, it’s just like last time,’” Twohy mentioned.
In courtroom, attorneys representing victims of the 2019 hearth have seized on Edison’s admission that its gear might have sparked the Jan. 7 hearth.
“The evidence will show that five separate fires ignited at five separate SCE transmission tower bases in the same exact manner” because the 2019 hearth, they wrote in a June courtroom submitting.
Delgado’s dwelling sits subsequent to the grime street main as much as the towers. The Jan. 7 hearth melted his yard fence however did little extra harm. Within the days after the fireplace, he discovered that a number of the identical Edison workers he spoke to in 2019 as a witness reappeared.
“I saw the exact same people from Edison show up,” he mentioned. “I told them your towers almost killed my family again.”
Occasions workers author Kevin Rector contributed to this report.
