Southern California Edison has reported to state utilities regulators that there was an outage on one of its electrical circuits near where a large and destructive wildfire began as strong winds swept the region.
SoCal Edison says the report to the Public Utilities Commission was submitted out of an abundance of caution although there’s been no indication from fire officials that its equipment may have been involved with the start of the fire.
The utility’s report says the so-called Woolsey fire was reported at approximately 2:24 p.m. Thursday, two minutes after the outage on a circuit from a substation.
Similarly, Pacific Gas & Electric notified regulators there was a problem on an electrical transmission line minutes before a wind-driven fire erupted in Northern California on Thursday and destroyed the town of Paradise.
