California power company to pay $80 million in damages for 2017 wildfire

Southern California Edison, the second largest electricity company in the State and one of the largest in the United States, has reached an agreement to pay $80 million for its role in one of the largest wildfires in California.

It is one of the highest figures achieved by the Department of Justice in the State for damages caused by one of these events.

The company agreed on Friday afternoon to make the million-dollar disbursement without admitting fault or fraud in the accident that caused the Thomas fire, which consumed 110,000 hectares and destroyed more than a thousand homes in two counties of the entity at the end of 2017.

A company spokeswoman described the agreement as a “reasonable solution” on Monday.

SoCal Edison, as the company is called, was taken to court in 2020 by the Department of Justice.

Prosecutors filed the lawsuit on behalf of the U.S. Forest Service.

The objective was to recover part of the public money invested in fighting the flames of the gigantic fire.

This originated in two places on the afternoon of December 4 and worsened in the following days thanks to the Santa Ana winds, which blew from the interior of the State towards the coast.

The Los Padres National Forest, located in central California, was one of the most affected areas.

Federal investigators say that strong winds caused two failures in the network.

The first in a transformer in the city of Ojai and the second in a high voltage tower over a canyon in the city of Santa Paula, both locations located northwest of Los Angeles.

The two accidents caused sparks that immediately ignited the dry grasses that had been left behind by years of drought.

The two fires joined together and were known as the Thomas, which forced the evacuation of 80,000 people and forced hundreds of firefighters to fight arduous days for more than ten days.

During that period, the Thomas destroyed large parts of Santa Barbara and Ventura counties, two famous tourist pearls near the Californian Pacific coast.

It is the seventh largest fire on record in California.

The situation generated by Thomas complicated a hellish closure of 2017, a period where there were four active fires in a 300-kilometer-long strip that ran from San Diego, on the border with Mexico, passed through Los Angeles and reached Ventura. , to the north.

SoCal Edison serves 3.8 million homes in Central and Southern California.

The company has 60 days to pay the amount it has agreed to in court.

“We will continue to protect our communities from the risks of forest fires, reinforcing the network, with information campaigns and best operational practices,” said Gabriela Ornelas, spokesperson for the electricity company.

This is not the first time Edison has paid for destruction linked to wildfires started by equipment failures.

In January 2021, the company reported that it was estimating losses of $4.6 billion in damages related to the Thomas and Woolsey fires, which claimed three lives and destroyed 1,600 homes and buildings in 2018.

Pacific Gas & Electric, which serves the northern part of California, agreed in 2022 to pay $117 million in damages for wildfires recorded in 2017 and 2018. The company filed for bankruptcy in January 2019 for more than a year to to be able to structure its finances and order the payment of 13.5 billion dollars to compensate some 80,000 victims in a State where climate change makes the flames increasingly destructive.