Edison Says Its Equipment Likely Associated With 2025 LA Fire

Edison International CEO Pedro Pizarro told investors “no other viable alternatives have appeared” to explain what caused a massive wildfire in the Los Angeles area last year other than equipment owned by the company’s Southern California utility.

The company now believes that “absent additional evidence, it is likely that its equipment was associated with the ignition of the Eaton Fire,” according to a quarterly filing Thursday.

That’s a change from the prior quarter, when Edison used the same language but said “could have been” instead of “was.”

Southern California Edison faces lawsuits from more than 10,000 plaintiffs alleging its utility equipment started last year’s Eaton Fire, which killed 19 people and devastated the area around Pasadena. In court filings, the company has urged a judge not to find it liable for billions of dollars in property damage, saying an official investigation into the cause of the fire is ongoing.

When asked about the subtle shift in language from quarter to quarter, Pizarro said it reflected the information the company has on hand today.

Since the company’s last reported earnings, “No other viable alternatives have appeared, so we thought that the slight streamlining that we did there was appropriate,” he said on a call with investors.

Edison had no immediate further comment.

To cover its costs from the Eaton Fire, the company is counting on a California fund that was designed in 2019 to shield investor-owned utilities from financial wipe-out over fire losses and ensure that victims are made whole.

Edison is responsible for the first $1 billion of wildfire-related claims, which it pays using its customer-funded self-insurance program. After that, the company can tap the wildfire fund. Last year, the state passed a law to boost the $21 billion fund by $18 billion, funded half by ratepayers and half by shareholders of the state’s investor-owned utilities.

Edison is meeting the $1 billion threshold with payments it’s making through a compensation program for fire victims and settlements with insurance companies, Chief Financial Officer Aaron Moss said on Thursday’s call.

Moss said that through a “pre-funding mechanism” with the administrator of the wildfire fund the company won’t have to pay for damage claims out of pocket.

Top photo: Electrical transmission lines after the Eaton Fire in the hills above Altadena, California, on Monday, Jan. 13, 2025. Bloomberg.