edison

New surveillance footage and other evidence from Southern California Edison confirms that a century-old, idle transmission line that the utility failed to remove ignited last year’s deadly Eaton wildfire, lawyers for insurers said in a court filing.

Video obtained from a surveillance camera at Gerrish Swim & Tennis Club in Pasadena shows two bright flashes occurring in the location of the tower holding the idle line at 6:11 p.m. on Jan. 7, 2025.

The flashes correspond to the time that Edison recorded two faults, three seconds apart, on another transmission line more than five miles away, the lawyers said in the filing, citing new data provided by the utility.

Soon after the faults, residents nearby recorded videos of a fire burning at the base of the tower, which is known as M16T1.

“Southern California Edison has spent the last sixteen months attempting to forestall the inevitable legal consequences of razing a large swath of the communities of Altadena and Pasadena to the ground,” the lawyers wrote in the filing.

“The Eaton Fire could not have occurred if SCE had simply disassembled and removed Structure M16T1,” the lawyers added.

The lawyers filing the May 18 motion represent property insurers that paid tens of millions of dollars to residents who lost their homes. Their motion asks the judge to order a judgment in the insurers’ favor that would make Edison liable for the damage under inverse condemnation, a legal doctrine in the state constitution.

Courts have ruled that the doctrine requires private utilities such as Edison to pay for property they destroy, even if they haven’t been found to have acted negligently.

Kathleen Dunleavy, a spokeswoman for Edison, said the company did not learn about the existence of the swim club video until the lawyers submitted it in court with their filing.

“It’s very disappointing and inappropriate that this video was not produced in discovery,” she said. “We hope that video has been turned over to the appropriate authorities.”

Dunleavy said the company believes the lawyers’ motion “is wrong on the facts and the law.”

“We’ll respond more fully in our own court filing,” she said.

Attorneys for the insurers did not respond to requests for comment.

In a February 2025 letter to state regulators, Edison said it had detected a single fault on a line more than five miles away from Altadena about 6:11 p.m. on the night the fire ignited. It said the fault caused a brief surge of electricity on its four live transmission lines in Eaton Canyon.

The company said in the letter that it was looking into whether the power surge could have caused electricity to jump to the idle line that runs parallel to the live wires through a process called induction.

Pedro Pizarro, chief executive of Edison International, later said that a leading theory of the fire’s ignition was that the idle line became energized briefly through induction, sparking the fire.

At the same time, the company has not accepted blame for the fire, saying repeatedly that its own confidential investigation into the cause, as well as a separate inquiry by Los Angeles County and state fire officials, is continuing.

According to the court filing, evidence obtained by the lawyers shows that the company stopped using the transmission line in 1971 and designated it as “out-of-service.”

“The declaration of Out of Service shall only be used when the line … or piece of equipment is expected to remain permanently out of service,” Edison stated in an internal document known as a system operating bulletin, according to the filing.

Edison executives told The Times last year that they left the line in place because they believed it might be needed in the future.

“We have these inactive lines still available because there is a reasonable chance we’re going to use them in the future,” Shinjini Menon, Edison’s senior vice president of system planning and engineering, said then.

Dunleavy said Friday that the idle lines are kept in place for a variety of reasons, including to preserve the right of way Edison had obtained to construct them and to support future needs for more electricity as the state aims to meet its clean energy goals.

Last year, The Times reported that state regulators, knowing old electric lines posed hazards, proposed a rule in 2001 that would have forced Edison and other utilities to remove idle lines unless they could prove they would use them in the future.

Under pressure from Edison and the other companies, the rule was weakened to allow utilities to keep the unused lines in place until executives decided they were “permanently abandoned.”

In their May 18 filing, the lawyers said Edison executives had known about the risk of induction for more than 100 years. They cited a 1923 contract between Edison and Pacific Electric Railway Co. that said that “leakage of electricity or induction from or between” conductors was an inherent risk of operating multiple electrical circuits in proximity.

“That’s why SCE grounds idle lines and inspects them,” Dunleavy said of the risk.

Copies of Edison’s fault records from that night, its operating bulletin and thousands of other documents, including depositions, are sealed from public view under a protective order that Edison and lawyers for the victims asked the judge to approve last year.

The L.A. County district attorney is investigating whether Edison should be criminally prosecuted for its actions in the fire, the company said in an investor filing this year.

The fire killed at least 19 people and left thousands of families homeless.

A hearing on the lawyers’ motion is scheduled for Aug. 11 in L.A. County Superior Court.

Edison has offered to compensate victims of the fire who give up their right to sue the utility.

The company said last week that it had so far received more than 3,500 claims from about 10,000 people. It said it had extended nearly 1,900 offers to those people, totaling more than $650 million.

Many victims have refused the offers, saying they don’t fully cover their losses from the devastating blaze.

Edison has told its investors it expects to actually pay little or nothing for the fire because of a 2019 state law. The company anticipates that it will be reimbursed for its payments to victims by a $21-billion fund created by the law known as
Assembly Bill 1054.

The law shields utilities from the damages of fires sparked by their equipment as long as they follow certain requirements, including submitting a plan to state regulators for reducing the risk that their equipment sparks fires. Regulators review the plan and track whether the utilities are making progress in reducing the fire risk.

Since 2019, Edison has spent billions of dollars on making its lines safer, including by undergrounding them and installing insulated wires. Those costs continue to raise customer electric bills.

In the last 10 years, Edison’s rates increased by 101%, according to an April report by the public advocates office at the California Public Utilities Commission.

Despite the spending, Edison’s electric lines sparked more fires in 2024 than in 2019. The company blamed the increase on erratic weather that created more dried vegetation.

There’s no denying that Loyola’s lacrosse program is best in Southern California and could be that way for years to come with the number of elite young players participating.

On Saturday night, the Cubs (16-3) won their latest Southern Section Division 1 championship with a 14-6 win over Santa Margarita. The Cubs have won three title since the sport was adopted as a championship event in the Southern Section. Defense has been Loyola’s strength all season.

Senior defenders Chase Hellie and Everett Rolph and junior goalkeeper William Russo led one of the best defenses in program history under coach Jimmy Borell.

Senior Cash Ginsberg finished with five goals and junior North Carolina commit Tripp King finished with two goals.

Orange Lutheran won Division 2 boys over Edison and Windward won Division 3.

In girls Division 1, Mira Costa upset top-seeded Santa Margarita 12-6.

Birmingham coach Matt Mowry works with his players on going with pitches to right field. The Patriots came through with perfection on Wednesday.

Four times in the decisive fourth inning, Birmingham hitters hit outside pitches to right field for base hits, igniting a four-run inning and leading to a 10-2 victory, pulling the Patriots into a first-place tie with El Camino Real in the West Valley League going a Friday game at Birmingham.

Sophomore Carlos Acuna threw a complete game for Birmingham in 10-2 win over El Camino Real.

(Craig Weston)

Sophomore catcher Jordan Lindsay had the biggest hitting of the fourth, an RBI double down the right-field line to tie the score, 1-1. Ethan Dalumpines followed with RBI single to right field. JuJu Monroe-Truitt and Larkin Fleming also contribued RBI singles to right off Jackson Sellz.

“He’s on us at practice to go to the right side,” Lindsay said of Mowry.

The Patriots blew the game open with a six-run fifth, including an RBI single from Lindsay and one walk and one hit batter with the bases loaded to push across runs. Carlos Acuna threw a complete game. Both teams are seeking a win Friday because the league champion figures to be the No. 1 seed for the City Section Open Division playoffs.

RJ De La Rosa had an RBI single and double for ECR.

Harvard-Westlake 8, Chaminade 0: James Tronstein continued his impressive power display by hitting two home runs, a double and driving in three runs. He has eight home runs on the season. Evan Alexander struck out 10 in five innings.

Norco 1, Corona 0: It took nine innings to settle this Big VIII League showdown with Jayden Serna delivering the walk-off hit in the bottom of the ninth inning. Jordan Ayala threw seven scoreless innings for Norco. Mason Sims gave up one hit in eight innings for Corona.

Sierra Canyon 3, Loyola 2: The Trailblazers won despite home runs from Loyola’s Bobby Rapp and Jack Murray.

Sherman Oaks Notre Dame 8, Bishop Alemany 3: Benett Pace went four for four and Jacob Madrid homered for the Knights.

Carson 6, Narbonne 5: Nate Ruan and Fernando Barajas each had two hits for Carson.

Edison 4, Corona del Mar 0: Noah Hunter struck out 10 and gave up two hits in six innings for Edison.

Ayala 8, Claremont 0: Easton Sarmiento struck out eight in four innings. Caleb Trugman had three hits.

Huntington Beach 2, Newport Harbor 1: Jared Grindlinger thew his first complete game of the season, striking out seven and walking none. Ely Mason had a home run.

JSerra 13, Santa Margarita 3: The Lions hit four home runs, including another from Blake Bowen, in the Trinity League win. Aidan Rae had three RBIs.

Garfield 10, South East 3: Michael Santillan had four hits for Garfield.

Bell 6, Legacy 1: Jayden Rojas had two hits and four RBIs.

Chatsworth 16, Cleveland 1: Nihaan Kothari had three hits and Damian Ayala had three RBIs for Chatsworth.

Granada Hills 12, Taft 0: Landon Tuch had four hits and Luke Chau struck out nine with no walks in five innings for Granada Hills.

West Ranch 6, Hart 5: Josh Price went three for three with three RBIs.

Etiwanda 14, Rancho Cucamonga 2: The Eagles celebrated a Baseline League championship. Adam Ornelas had four hits.

Corona Santiago 13, Corona Centennial 4: Jonathan Thornton had four hits and six RBIs, including a grand slam, for Santiago.

After last year’s disastrous Eaton fire, Southern California Edison executives vowed to be transparent about what caused the inferno that killed at least 19 people and left thousands of families homeless in Altadena.

“As we better understand exactly what happened on Jan. 7, we do so with a commitment to remain transparent,” Pedro Pizarro, chief executive of Edison International, the utility’s parent company, said in a published statement after the fire.

In court, however, Edison is keeping crucial documents of the cause of the Eaton fire secret, a legal strategy it has used to shield what happened in at least seven earlier wildfires it was blamed for igniting, according to a Times review.

Edison’s stance has caused mounting frustration with attorneys representing fire victims who are seeking compensation for their losses.

“The Eaton Fire cases should be decided on their merits, not on what information that SCE has been able to withhold,” lawyers for the victims wrote in a recent court filing.

State regulators have repeatedly criticized Edison for its secrecy in previous fires, saying it violated safety regulations and stopped officials from learning the root cause so that similar disasters could be prevented.

For more than a year, Edison employees have been gathering detailed information about what ignited the fire in an investigation the company is required to perform under state utility regulations.

But most of that information is being withheld by Edison’s claim of attorney-client privilege, as well as a protective order that it asked a judge to approve soon after the fire.

Protective orders are commonly used in civil lawsuits, but most cases do not have the broad ramifications to the public as the Eaton fire.

Pedro Pizarro, chief executive of Edison International, at the Semafor World Economy Summit in Washington on April 14.

(Aaron Schwartz / Bloomberg)

Because of the secrecy, it’s not possible to know just what Edison has found, attorneys for Eaton fire victims said in a filing.

In past fires, regulators have requested from the company — and been denied — photographs, notes, text messages and other records generated by the Edison crew that was first to arrive at the site where the blaze ignited. The company has argued its attorney directed the crew, making the evidence privileged.

The victims’ lawyers say Edison shouldn’t be able to withhold from them most evidence from its investigation into the blaze by claiming that the findings and related documents are covered by attorney-client privilege and therefore confidential.

In a recent interview with The Times, Pizarro disagreed that the company was keeping information on the cause of the Eaton fire secret.

“We believe we’ve been transparent,” Pizarro said. “Facts are not privileged, and so we provided facts as we have known them.”

He said the company’s investigation was continuing. “We still, to this day, don’t fully understand what happened,” he said.

Pizarro said the protective order was needed to keep many things confidential, including some not related to the fire’s cause. For example, he said, it protects maps of the electrical system, which can’t be revealed because of terrorism concerns.

Signs blaming Southern California Edison for the Eaton fire are seen near cleared lots in the Altadena area of Los Angeles County on Jan. 5.

(Josh Edelson / AFP via Getty Images)

He pointed to several company disclosures, including two letters it sent to regulators soon after the Eaton fire that said it was evaluating whether a century-old transmission line, which hadn’t carried power since 1971, “could have become energized” and helped lead to the fire.

Pizarro said last year that the possible reenergization of that old line is a leading theory of the fire’s cause.

The company has said little else about the fire’s cause, other than it safely maintained and inspected the idle line, just like it did its energized lines.

Edison faces thousands of lawsuits from victims of the fire, which burned 14,021 acres and leveled a wide swath of Altadena. The lawsuits allege, in part, that the company was negligent for failing to safely maintain its transmission lines and for leaving the idle line in place when it knew it could become energized. Edison denies the claims of the lawsuits, which have been consolidated in L.A. County Superior Court.

Some documents that Edison says are not privileged and agreed to provide to the victims’ lawyers are sealed by a protective order that the company and the plaintiffs’ lawyers requested.

Plaintiffs’ attorneys often agree to such protective orders on the theory that doing so would allow the utility to more freely share information that could help their case.

Power lines hang from towers carrying power from the Southern California Edison Gould Station.

(Carlin Stiehl / For The Times)

Two months after the fire, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Laura Seigle signed the protective order — which covers documents that both sides provide in discovery — including business information deemed proprietary and personal customer data.

According to the protective order, if the case is settled, the lawyers will decide whether the sealed documents should be returned to Edison or destroyed.

If the case proceeds to trial, some of the evidence could become public.

Yet even with the protective order in place, plantiffs’ attorneys say Edison has refused to provide them with evidence from its investigation into the fire, saying it’s protected by attorney-client privilege.

The state-required investigations “are not private inquiries undertaken for SCE’s benefit and legal protection,” the plaintiffs’ lawyers wrote in a filing last year. “Those investigations are regulated activities that exist to protect the public and enhance public safety by preventing future fires.”

To begin those investigations, Edison’s crews often get to the ignition site before government officials. In the 2019 Saddleridge fire in Sylmar, an investigator from the Los Angeles Fire Department found the yellow police tape at the road leading to where the blaze started on the ground and an Edison truck leaving the site, according to his report.

California utility regulators have said the earliest observations at the scene are critical in determining what happened.

L.A. Fire Justice attorney Mikal Watts presents findings on the cause of the Eaton fire at transmission tower 3 at a January 2025 news conference in Pasadena.

(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

Loretta Lynch, former president of the California Public Utilities Commission, which regulates the electric companies, said she believed Edison was wrongly using attorney-client privilege and protective orders “as a sword to prevent justice.”

Lynch said the confidentiality could keep evidence of Edison’s possible negligence from being used at a future state hearing that will look at whether the company acted safely and prudently before the Eaton fire.

In that hearing, if the commission finds the company acted prudently, all damage costs will be covered by a state wildfire fund and Edison customers. The company and its shareholders would pay nothing.

“It’s time to stop this game of allowing utilities to be negligent and then walk away with their customers paying for it,” Lynch said.

Kathleen Dunleavy, an Edison spokeswoman, said the company’s “assertions of privilege in civil court have nothing to do” with the future state hearing on whether the company acted prudently.

Dunleavy added that the company has been cooperating with government fire investigators and the plaintiff lawyers, responding to their requests for data.

The government’s investigation into the cause of the fire has not yet been released.

Asked about the company’s withholding of documents in court, Pizarro pointed to a 2024 California Appeals Court decision that found that Edison’s assertion of attorney-client privilege to keep evidence sealed in litigation over the 2017 Creek fire was appropriate under the law. The court said that protecting the documents generated in the internal investigation from public disclosure allowed the company’s attorneys “to investigate not only the favorable but the unfavorable aspects” of their client’s situation.

Lawyers for victims of the Creek fire, which destroyed more than 100 homes and structures near Sylmar, say Edison failed to provide evidence that showed its line was a likely cause of the blaze, leading government investigators to initially wrongly blame electrical equipment owned by the L.A. Department of Water and Power. Edison continues to deny it caused the fire.

A fire truck makes its way past a portion of the Creek fire along Wheatland Avenue in Sylmar on Dec. 5, 2017.

(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

In the Eaton fire case, a few details of what’s in the confidential documents have been revealed in court, showing they could be significant when the first trial begins next year.

In February, plaintiff lawyers filed 13 sealed exhibits for only the judge to review, saying they showed how Edison had neglected inspections, maintenance and repair of the idle line. The records are subject to the protective order, shielding them from public view.

“There is ample evidence in this case that SCE performed more frequent and higher quality inspections and maintenance on its live equipment than it did on its inactive facilities,” they wrote.

“From all indications, SCE left Tower 208 virtually unattended for decades,” they added, referring to the pylon that held the idle line and was found to be the location of the fire’s first flames.

The plaintiff lawyers also said the protective order prevents them from disclosing photos to the public that show Edison left vegetation growing under the idle line while removing it from beneath the live wires running parallel to it, according to the court filing. Utility regulations require vegetation to be removed from under and around electric lines to reduce the risk of fire.

The lawyers added that the sealed documents showed that Edison was having problems with an outside contractor it had hired to inspect its transmission lines.

Asked about the filing, Pizarro said the claims were assertions by the plaintiff attorneys that would be debated in court.

Some legal experts have criticized the use of protective orders for keeping the public in the dark about dangerous corporate actions or products.

Lynch said protective orders and confidential settlements in wildfire litigation are preventing the public from learning information that could stop future deadly fires. She said California should consider legislation to ban the use of the secrecy tactics in wildfire lawsuits.

Firefighters work to contain the Saddleridge fire on Oct. 10, 2019, in the Sylmar neighborhood of Los Angeles.

(Patrick T. Fallon / For The Times)

The Times found protective orders in lawsuits against Edison for the 2017 Thomas fire and mudslides, which killed 23; the 2018 Woolsey fire, which killed three; the 2019 Saddleridge fire, which killed one; and the 2022 Fairview fire, which killed two. Those fires together caused billions of dollars in damages and destroyed thousands of homes.

Lawyers for the Eaton fire victims told the judge in February that the protective order, as well as similar secrecy orders in lawsuits over other fires, had kept them from speaking publicly about certain subjects in the courtroom, including what they knew about Edison’s line inspections.

“This is a significant case, against one of the world’s largest providers of electricity, which has, through the use of Confidentiality Protective Orders in other cases, impaired the Plaintiffs’ ability to fully inform the Court,” they wrote.

Late last month, Judge Seigle ordered Edison to give the victims’ lawyers more of the documents they had requested. The protective order limits the public’s access to them.

Eaton wildfire survivors’ anger about Southern California Edison’s burying of electric wires in Altadena boiled over Tuesday with residents calling on government officials to temporarily halt the work.

In a letter to the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, more than 120 Altadena residents and the town’s council wrote that they had witnessed “manifest failures” by Edison in recent months as it has been tearing up streets and digging trenches to bury the wires.

The residents cited the unexpected financial cost of the work to homeowners and possible harm to the town’s remaining trees. They also pointed out how the work will leave telecommunication wires above ground on poles.

“The current lack of coordination is compounding the stress of a community still reeling from the Eaton Fire, and risks causing further irreparable harm,” the residents wrote.

The council voted unanimously Tuesday night to send the letter.

Scott Johnson, an Edison spokesman, said Wednesday that the company has been working to address the concerns, including by looking for other sources of funds to help pay for the homeowners’ costs.

“We recognize this community has already faced a number of challenges,” he said.

Johnson said the company will allow homeowners to keep existing overhead lines connecting their homes to the grid if they are worried about the cost.

Edison’s crews, Johnson said, have also been trained to use equipment that avoids roots and preserves the health of trees.

The utility has said that burying the wires as the town rebuilds thousands of homes destroyed in the fire will make the electrical grid safer and more reliable.

But anger has grown as work crews have shown up unexpectedly and residents learned they’re on the hook to pay tens of thousands of dollars to connect their homes to the buried lines.

Residents have also found the crews digging under the town’s oak and pine trees that survived last year’s fire. Arborists say the trenches could destroy the roots of some of the last remaining trees and kill them.

Amy Bodek, the county’s regional planning director, recently warned Edison that a government ordinance protects oak trees and that “utility trenching is not exempt from these requirements.”

Residents have also pointed out that in much of Altadena, the telecom companies, including Spectrum and AT&T, have not agreed to bury their wires in Edison’s trenches. That means the telecom wires will remain on poles above ground, which residents say is visually unappealing.

“While our community supports the long-term benefits of moving utilities underground, the current execution by SCE is placing undue financial and planning burdens on homeowners, causing irreparable harm to our heritage tree canopy, and proceeding without adequate local oversight,” the residents wrote.

They want the project halted until the problems are addressed.

Edison announced last year that it would spend as much as $925 million to underground and rebuild its grid in Altadena and Malibu, where the Palisades fire caused devastation.

The work — which costs an estimated $4 million per mile — will earn the utility millions of dollars in profits as its electric customers pay for it over the next decades.

Pedro Pizarro, chief executive of Edison International, told Gov. Gavin Newsom last year that state utility rules would require Altadena and Malibu homeowners to pay to underground the electric wire from their property line to the panel on their house. Pizarro estimated it would cost $8,000 to $10,000 for each home.

But some residents, who need to dig long trenches, say it will cost them much more.

“We are rebuilding and with the insurance shortfall, our finances are stretched already,” Marilyn Chong, an Altadena resident, wrote in a comment attached to the letter. “Incurring the additional burden of financing SCE’s infrastructure is not something we can or should have to do.”

Other fire survivors complained of Edison’s lack of planning and coordination with residents.

“I’ve started rebuilding, and apparently there won’t be underground power lines for me to connect with in time when my house will be done,” wrote Gail Murphy. “So apparently I’m supposed to be using a generator, and for how long!?”

Johnson said the company has set up a phone line for people with concerns or questions. That line — 1-800-250-7339 — is answered Monday through Saturday, he said.

Residents can also go to Edison’s office in Altadena at 2680 Fair Oaks Avenue. The office is open Monday to Friday from 8 to 4:30.

It’s unclear if the Eaton fire would have been less disastrous if Altadena’s neighborhood power lines had been buried.

The blaze ignited under Edison’s towering transmission lines that run through Eaton Canyon. Those lines carry bulk power through the company’s territory. In Altadena, Edison is burying the smaller distribution lines, which carry power to homes.

The government investigation into the cause of the fire has not yet been released. Pizarro has said that a leading theory is that a century-old transmission line, which had not carried power for 50 years, somehow re-energized to spark the blaze.

The fire killed at least 19 people and destroyed more than 9,400 homes and other structures.