HEMET, CA — Southern California Edison has been fined $2.2 million by the California Public Utilities Commission for sparking Riverside County’s devastating Fairview Fire in 2022, officials announced.
The fire, which burned in Hemet, scorched a staggering 28,098 acres, killed two people and injured three others. The fire destroyed 36 structures, including 22 single-family homes. The fire also damaged eight structures, including five homes.
The wildfire’s containment and extinguishment cost an estimated $38,850,000. Meanwhile, the blaze caused at least $1,206,644 in property damage to utility facilities, according to the complaint filed by the commission.
The utility is being fined for four violations that CPUC reported. Among the violations in the citation was that SCE failed to maintain the clearance of their electrical wires from hitting other power lines.
It was found that the Fairview Fire was likely triggered by a sagging electrical wire that ignited vegetation below.
During the Fairview Fire investigation, the commission’s Safety and Enforcement Division observed two “scorch marks” on the phase 1B conductor and the Frontier Communications messenger cable, “consistent with electrical arc damage,” the complaint states.
CalFire’s own investigation also confirmed that SCE’s conductor and the Frontier Communications messenger cable had a clearance of “zero,” meaning they collided at some point.
Failure to maintain that clearance is a violation of the utilities code. A fourth violation mandates that conductors operating up to 22,500 volts must maintain a vertical above-ground clearance of 17 feet.
The citation, issued on March 21, also accuses SCE of failing to respond to the commission’s investigation into the cause of the blaze. The citation details that SCE was “consistently late” and delayed responding to that investigation.
The utility giant’s response to the investigation “hindered and delayed SED’s ability to investigate the Fairview Fire incident within a reasonable timeframe.”
During the investigation, the citation alleges that SCE treated its first deadline as “unilaterally negotiable and with a lack of seriousness.”
The utility “did not provide SED with timely responses,” which violates a public utilities code.
CPUC said they asked SCE 55 questions in December 2022, which were due by Jan. 26, 2023.
“SCE failed to respond to DR-01 on the due date and did not seek an extension from SED. Instead, SCE informed SED that it had decided to extend the deadline to respond to DR-01 to January 20, 2023, February 10, 2023, and February 24, 2023, and that it would be providing the responses on a piecemeal basis,” according to the citation.
Also, according to CPUC, SCE missed its “self-granted” extension. Ultimately, the utility only responded to five out of 55 questions that it was required to answer.
After a series of SCE requests for more extensions, SED finally told SCE that April 28, 2023, would be the final deadline to answer the remaining questions.
On May 24, 2023, SED issued its Notice of Inclusion of Violations, and said that the delays were “unacceptable.”
On July 10, the utility responded to that notice and “claimed that the delay…was due in part to a family emergency faced by an SCE employee who worked on the investigation,” the complaint reads.
“However, SED’s position is that SCE’s mismanagement of its internal resources created the delay and hindered SED’s investigation,” the citation continues.
This isn’t the first time the Southland utility has faced scrutiny and lawsuits over devastating wildfires. More recently, the utility is being sued for igniting the Eaton Fire, which leveled entire neighborhoods in Altadena at the start of the year.
