Southern California Edison discloses that a power line was active near apparent origin of Easy fire
A Southern California Edison transmission line was active at the time the Easy fire broke out Wednesday in Simi Valley, officials said Thursday, as utility and arson investigators spent the day homing in on the source of the blaze.
Over two days, the fire has scorched more than 1,700 acres while threatening thousands of homes and the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library. Firefighters got the upper hand on Thursday as they reached 60% containment.
The disclosure came Wednesday afternoon, when the Rosemead-based utility informed the California Public Utilities Commission of the active line in the area near where the fire broke out — Easy Street and Los Angeles Avenue, about 4 miles north of the Reagan Library.
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The active line is significant because it came as lines throughout Southern California and the state have been pre-emptively shut off by utilities wary that they could spark fires under extreme red flag conditions.
“On October 30, 2019, a large brush fire known as the Easy Fire was reported at approximately 6:09 a.m. SCE informed there was circuit activity on the Moorpark-Royal 66 kV circuit close in time to the report ofthe fire,” according to the disclosure. “SCE submits this report as it meets the subject of significant public attention or media coverage reporting requirement.”
The disclosure is not an admission of a cause of the fire, but it has launched investigations by the CPUC and a review by SCE.
“While the exact origin is unknown, SCE can confirm that the reported location of the fire is in its service territory and that SCE has facilities, including a 66kV subtransmission line, that runs through that area,” said SCE spokesman Robert Villegas.
“Out of an abundance of caution, we notiifed the CPUC on Oct. 30 that near the reported time of the fire there was activity on that 66kv subtransmission line, which consistent with our public safety power shutoff protocols was not de-energized.”
Villegas did not elaborate on why the line was still active.
“It’s very early in that process,” Villegas said.
Ventura County arson investigators have been working the area for a cause since Wednesday, when they probed the area near a homeless encampment, where residents there said they had seen the fire in its early stages. Power lines hang over the patch of land where the encampment sits.
Ventura County Fire Department spokesman Mike DesForges confirmed that the area was where investigators are looking but have not made any conclusions yet.
On Thursday, the area of the homeless encampment had been cordoned off, with residents expecting to be let back in to the area on Friday with any possessions they’d saved from the fire, which also scorched the encampment.
Bobby Green, 60, was among about 25 sleeping in the encampment near where the Easy fire began. He said someone heard a loud pop near an electrical line transformer.
Crews appeared to be working on a utility pole until about 3:30 that morning, before the fire started, he said.
“It wasn’t one of us,” Green said about the suspicion that someone among the homeless camp started the fire. “With such high winds, no one down there would ever have a campfire,” he said. “We know better.”
This week, a report said Southern California Edison equipment was responsible for the ignition Nov. 8 of the Woolsey Fire, which destroyed 1,643 structures, killed three people and prompted the evacuation of more than 295,000 people in Los Angeles and Ventura counties, SCE said.
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