Los Angeles County has recently filed legal action against Southern California Edison (SCE), alleging the company could be a California wildfire cause that contributed to the 2018 Woolsey Fire.

According to a release announcing the lawsuit, LA County stated it had incurred over $100 million in damages reportedly caused by the Woolsey Fire. Officials are still investigating the potential cause of the fire, but it is currently believed to be from faulty SCE equipment.

According to the Public Utilities Commission, an electrical outage that occurred before the Woolsey Fire was reportedly caused by a guy wire and a jumper wire making contact. Guy wires provide pole support, while jumper wires connect two energy lines.

The official cause of the Woolsey Fire is still being investigated. The fire reportedly destroyed over 1,600 structures, damaged 360 other buildings, and has been linked to three deaths. The fire reportedly caused over 200,000 people in Los Angels and Ventura counties to be evacuated, which burned over 96,000 acres.

According to the Verisk’s 2017 Wildfire Risk Analysis, 4.5 million homes in the United States were at high or extreme risk of wildfire, with over two million of these homes located in California. Losses from wildfires have reportedly added up to $5.1 billion in the last ten years, with people and communities left devastated by the aftermath.

According to U.S. Department of Interior, approximately 90 percent of wildfires in the United States are from some form of human error like unchecked campfires or carelessly discarding cigarettes. However, this could also include not replacing faulty electrical equipment that could increase the likelihood of sparking and causing a fire in dry weather.

Overview of Allegations

SCE is a unit of Edison International, which is already facing other lawsuits for being an alleged California wildfire cause. The company is also facing legal action for the Thomas Fire, which was responsible for burning 280,000 acres in Ventura and Santa Barbara in 2017, with investigators still trying to determine the cause.

While the California wildfire cause has yet to be determined in both cases, a 10-K regulatory filing from February 2018 states that faulty SCE equipment could be connected.

The filing stated the Cal Fire “removed and retained certain of SCE’s equipment that was located in the general vicinity of suspected areas of origin of each of the fires” and that “its equipment could be found to have been associated with the ignition of the Woolsey Fire.”

The damages the California fire lawsuit is seeking include fire suppression, emergency response, recovery efforts, and loss of tax revenue.

“This legal action is an important and essential step toward accountability and recovery,” county Supervisor Sheila Kuehl said.

The reported combined total of the 2018 California wildfires damages reached $12.4 billion. According to state insurance officials cited by an NPR report, California homeowners who have suffered property damages have reportedly filed $11.4 billion in claims.

The full value of homes or buildings are normally covered by property insurance policies, but trees and landscapes are not. Only approximately five percent of insurance policies cover tree damage, so many policies will not cover property owners who lost very old or mature trees that increased property value.

This article is not legal advice. It is presented
for informational purposes only.