A 2018 wildfire that killed three people and destroyed more than 1,600 structures in Southern California was sparked by utility equipment in fierce winds, according to a redacted investigative report determining the origin of the fire.
A"communication line" that was hooked up to the steel pole also was energized and a second fire was reported about a quarter of a mile away underneath the communication line, the report states. The two fires merged to become the Woolsey fire, the report says. It became one of the most destructive fires in the state, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, known as Cal Fire. A burn scar from the fire was captured by NASA's Terra satellite.
The company said it did not find evidence of downed electrical wires at the suspected origin point of the fire, but it did report an outage on its electrical system near that point and found a pole support wire close to an electrical wire that was energized before that reported outage. "We reported the incident despite seeing no activity on the nearby 12-kV circuit nor any downed power lines because it appears that a lashing wire attached to a telecommunications line may have contacted SCE's power line above it, possibly starting the fire," Abel told CNN earlier this week.