Investigators in Southern California are continuing to pursue answers as to what caused the Eaton Fire, which resulted in nearly 10,000 structures burning down in Los Angeles County. The latest findings point to a potential “zombie” power line.
According to a report from the Wall Street Journal, a defunct “zombie” power line may have been the cause of the Eaton Fire that burst to life on Jan. 7.
The Journal spoke with engineers from the Southern California Edison power company, who shared that an electric charge may have jumped from an active, high-voltage line into an “idle line” that was sitting without a charge for more than 50 years.
Despite the report, officials with SCE have told the Journal that no active lines were to blame.
However, they have said the power lines caught flashing in a gas station security camera video from near the origin of the wildfire may have been electromagnetic charges jumping from live lines to a dead one through the process of “induction.”
The New York Post has also reported that witnesses reported seeing flames at the base of an SCE-owned transmission tower.
The “zombie” line that is now being investigated as a potential cause for the fire had been out of commission since 1971, according to the Journal. It had also been outfitted with equipment to channel ambient charges into the ground. The SCE has said part of that equipment had been damaged.
“If it’s not tied off appropriately, you have grounding problems…That electricity doesn’t dissipate into the ground like it should, and that leads to arcing,” attorney Mikal Watts told the Journal.
Several class action lawsuits against SCE have been filed, and Watts is leading one of them on behalf of fire victims. The suit claims the utility company could have prevented the fires had it maintained its equipment properly.