About 14 hours before the Eaton fire started on January 7 on the hills above Altadena and Pasadena, California, high -voltage lines in the area seem to have come under pressure due to intensifying wind.
New data from a company that maintains electric sensors suggest that the transmission network of Edison in South California was long emphasized before the most serious winds in the Los Angeles region, which contributed to the growing criticism that the electrical utility did not do enough to prevent the fire. Edison is already judged as the possible cause of the Eaton Fire, who killed fire 17 people and destroyed more than 9,400 buildings.
The data comes from Whisker Labs, a technology company in Maryland, and suggests that there were errors or electric disruptions, on the transmission lines of Edison at 4:28 am and 4:36 am on the day of the fire. Wind speeds at that time were sustained at 60 miles per hour, with wind games as high as 79 km / h, – strong enough for engineers to consider cutting power.
Later in the day, Whisker identified two errors just a few minutes before the fire started, at around 6:11 pm, on the transmission network near Eaton Canyon, where fire researchers said that the Eaton Fire started. These errors corresponded to flashes on the transmission lines included by a video camera at a nearby Arco tank station.
South California Edison, which supplies the electricity to various communities near Eaton Canyon, including Altadena, has not cut any electricity to the transmission lines despite the early morning errors. Neither cut the power utilization on the transmission lines after the second series of errors in the evening when the wind reached 100 mph
“They are very on each other,” said Bob Marshall, co-founder and Chief Executive of Whisker Labs, about the morning and evening errors. “We believe they are in the same area.
Mr. Marshall said that his company Edison informed his last findings, which identified it after the experts of the company had analyzed more data. Whisker Labs has sensors in houses to predict and prevent residential fires.
Critics of the usefulness claim that the massive mistakes, which were so strong that sensors are as far away as Portland, Ore., And Salt Lake City registered them, suggest that Edison should have reduced the power to the transmission lines as the weather conditions deteriorated.
“I think we have a great picture of what happened,” said Robert McCullough, director of McCullough Research in Portland, Ore., Who has viewed data and information about Edison, including from Whisker Labs, at the request of the New York Times. “Too many people did not respond quickly enough,” he added.
Although researchers have not determined the cause of the Eaton fire, residents and local authorities have filed lawsuits against Edison, claiming that the equipment of the Nut has lit one of the worst forest fires in the history of California. In his lawsuit against Edison, Los Angeles County mentioned the video of the gas station as proof. The video was first reported by The Times.
Kathleen Dunleavy, a spokeswoman for Edison, said that the decision to reduce power was based on many factors, including wind speed and natural fire threat in a certain area. Electric errors alone would not justify a decision to reduce power, she said. But the National Weather Service had issued the warnings for the red flag fire brigade to the management until 7 January for South California, and noted that extreme weather conditions in combination with dry vegetation.
Under Edison guidelines, engineers must consider cutting the ability to transmission lines when the winds are between 68 and 90 miles per hour. Mrs Dunleavy said that the circumstances did not justify that the cutting of electricity to high -voltage lines, known as closures of public safety, regards a step utility programs as a final resort in wildfire prevention.
“We did not meet the PSPS threshold, based on wind speed and fire brigade,” said Mrs. Dunleavy.
But wind speeds have been registered above the threshold of the utility several times that day, according to government data. Stains in the East -San Gabriel -Mountains in the Altadena area exceeded 68 MPH at least 20 times between 2 pm and 1 am on January 8, according to a Times Analysis of National Weather Service Data.
The tool did have mistakes on transmission lines on the Times Whisker Labs that were admitted on the morning of January 7, but Mrs Dunleavy said that the errors were not related to the lines in Eaton Canyon early in the day. She acknowledged that the utility with Whisker Labs talked about the findings.
“These two errors did not take place on a line that crosses the gap,” said Mrs. Dunleavy. “They are not relevant for a line in Eaton Canyon.”
Initially, the utility of similar explanations about the errors Whisker Labs that were recorded around 6.11 pm, but the video of the gas station showed the errors together with the flashes on transmission lines in the Altadena area, and Edison told State Regulators that the visual evidence led to the use of the Brand to be the cause of the investigation.
Edison cut the power before the fire started with three low voltage circuits that operate the Kinneloa Mesa community on the other side of Eaton Canyon from Altadena. But none of the high -voltage transmission lines in Eaton Canyon, nor the low voltage lines in Altadena were eliminated when the wind speeds picked up and the fire began.
On Monday, Edison started physical and video inspections and testing of electrical equipment in Eaton Canyon in the area where fire researchers said the Eaton fire started. The utility said that this phase of field tests would take a few weeks, followed by lab and engineering analysis, as part of the investigation into the cause of the fire.
“We owe it here to the public and I said from the start that I want to make sure that we are completely transparent here,” says Pedro Pizarro, president and chief executive of Edison International, the parent company of Southern California Edison.
The Eaton fire was one of the many forest fires that started in the Los Angeles area on January 7. They include the Palisades -fire that destroyed a large part of the coastal community of Pacific Palisades, and the Hurst Fire, which began north of the Eaton Fire.
Edison has told state rulers that its equipment may be involved in the cause of the Hurst -Brand. Three major errors were identified on the transmission network near Hurst before it started, according to mustache hair data.
Joey K. Lee contributed reporting.
