Edison neglected maintenance before Eaton Fire: LAT
The parent company of Southern California Edison has admitted their equipment likely sparked the fatal Eaton Fire, but a new Los Angeles Times report indicates the company perhaps could have done more to stop it.
The Times explained that for four years before January’s wildfires, SCE billed customers for “hundreds of millions of dollars authorized for transmission line maintenance and upgrades.”
Those funds, however, weren’t immediately put to use by the utility, the Times said, citing regulatory records.
“While it spent heavily in recent years to reduce the risk that its smaller lines would ignite fires, Edison fell behind on work and inspections it told regulators it planned on its transmission system, where some structures were a century old, according to documents,” the Times said.