Almost nine months have passed since the Eaton fire blazed through neighborhoods of Los Angeles County in January, destroying more than 9,000 buildings and causing an estimated billions of dollars in damages.
Since then, dozens of lawsuits, including two filed by the U.S. Department of Justice, have blamed high power transmission lines managed by the utility company, Southern California Edison, for starting the flames. SoCal Edison acknowledges that its transmission equipment could have been associated with the ignition of a fire that started just after 6 p.m. on Jan. 7, when sparks were spotted near high power lines in Eaton Canyon, in the foothills of the San Gabriel mountains.
By the end of January, when the fire was finally contained, Altadena was one of the neighborhoods most damaged. Almost all 19 of the people who died in the blaze perished in the neighborhood. But the community is miles away from Eaton Canyon, and satellite imagery shows that the Eaton fire front didn't cross into the western part of Altadena until after 5 a.m. the next day, according to a report commissioned by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors.
For months, amongst each other and in groups online, Altadena residents have wondered whether something else might have started fires earlier in their neighborhood. An NPR investigation now reveals that transmission lines were not the only kinds of electrical equipment that caused problems on Jan. 7.
Distribution lines that power individual homes malfunctioned in Altadena as early as 11 a.m., NPR found, and at least one fire linked to a problem with a distribution line started in Altadena hours before the sparks near Eaton Canyon. Throughout that morning and afternoon, firefighters were dispatched to different parts of Altadena to respond to problems with power lines. And although SoCal Edison can prevent the damage electrical fires can cause by shutting off the power that flows through power lines, the utility did not turn the power off to most of the circuits in Altadena on Jan. 7, NPR found.
Malfunctions, or "faults," can happen when falling tree limbs or poles touch power lines and trigger voltage drops in the current running through the wires, said Bob Marshall, the CEO of Whisker Labs, a company that collects voltage activity information from grids across the U.S. Electricity jumping into the air in the form of a spark or arc at points of contact can melt metal parts of the electrical infrastructure that can fall to the ground and ignite wildfires.
In the calmer weather days leading up to the wildfires that started on Jan. 7, distribution power lines never malfunctioned more than 18 times across LA. But on Jan. 7, as winds across the region reached hurricane strength, the distribution lines malfunctioned more than 200 times in the LA region, Whisker Labs estimates.
Three of those malfunctions were in Altadena. The first of the three was at 11 a.m on the eastern side of Altadena, well before the Eaton fire started. Another occurred at 9:38 p.m. in West Altadena, hours before satellite imagery appeared to show the Eaton fire front arrived in that part of the neighborhood.
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More distribution malfunctions could have happened that the Whisker Lab sensors didn't detect, said Marshall. And each malfunction that the sensors did pick up was significant enough to have ignited flames, he said.
"All of those events when we see sharp voltage drops, it's something that's going wrong on the grid," Marshall said. "Most of them likely have an arc or a spark associated with them and they could start a fire."
Meanwhile, all morning and afternoon, firefighters were being dispatched to respond to electrical problems on power lines. On Jan. 7, firefighters were sent to locations in Altadena at least 35 times because of calls that had to do with wires down or arcing, records obtained by NPR from the Los Angeles County Fire Department show. Most of those dispatches — 30 of them — were made before 6 p.m., around when sparks were seen on transmission lines miles away in Eaton Canyon.
When asked to comment, SoCal Edison replied through a representative that "the investigation into the Eaton Fire is ongoing."
The fact that firefighters were dispatched to locations because of problems with power lines doesn't mean there was a fire at each of those places. The dispatch records only log the reason for the dispatch, not the gravity of the situation when firefighters arrived.
But hours before sparks were seen near Eaton Canyon, at least one family saw a fire start on their property following a problem they believe was with distribution lines nearby.
Just after 4 p.m. on Jan. 7, Tom Ware said he noticed the lights flickering on and off inside his house near Catherine Road, a street just west of Lake Avenue, one of the main thoroughfares of the neighborhood.
When Ware went outside to investigate what was causing his electricity to falter, he saw that a ground fire had started in his backyard, near a tall, wooden utility pole and wires that carried power to his home and that of his tenant, whose unit was also on the property. The electrical equipment had sprayed sparks on the ground, Ware said, which started the fire.
"So I grabbed the hose, a couple of hoses, one for me, one for my tenant," said Ware. "And we started to battle that from our side of the fence."
Their property survived the first fire. But the tenant's unit caught fire two more times within the next 24 hours, Ware said. Flames eventually burned everything inside the walls.
Walking around a pile of debris next to the destroyed unit where her tenant used to stay, Ware's wife, Lea Chazin, said the fires that started on their property devastated their family.
"It was really our future, just to have this house and be able to rent the front house for our retirement, which, of course, we can't do now," said Chazin. "And we don't really think we'll have enough in insurance money to rebuild it."
Preventable problems
There was early evidence that weather conditions were dangerous and the power grid was strained. The National Weather Service issued two Red Flag Alerts for the Altadena area on Jan. 6 and Jan. 7, meaning the wind and weather conditions created "an increased risk of fire danger." On Jan. 7, the agency added an additional rare warning, advising that conditions in Altadena over the next two days were so dangerous that they qualified for the most extreme advance notice that can be issued by the NWS for expected weather hazards. By 8 a.m. that day, the wind gusts swirling at the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains had reached hurricane strength.
That kind of wind can easily knock tree branches and other electrical equipment into power lines, the sort of activity that can lead to malfunctions on distribution lines. And the distribution lines were already faulting all over LA.
Utility companies are able to shut power off to the circuits they manage. Cutting off power from flowing through the wires on those circuits prevents voltage drops and the electrical fires they can cause.
SoCal Edison did take some preventative action. At around 3:30 p.m., SoCal Edison shut the electricity off to sections of two of the 12 circuits that power homes in Altadena, according to data SoCal Edison submitted to the California Public Utilities Commission, the state group that monitors utilities. By around 9:46 p.m., SoCal Edison had shut off sections of two more circuits that power Altadena, the LA County report shows.
But SoCal Edison left eight circuits in Altadena on as the wildfire spread on Jan. 7, allowing electricity to continue flowing to buildings powered by those lines all day.
Raj Roy, the vice president of Distribution Operations at SoCal Edison, said the utility company carefully examines weather conditions to come to decisions about shutting off power. A company report states the utility also weighs the financial, reliability and safety cost to residents from losing power, which can have consequences for people who rely on electricity to power devices important in emergencies, like cell phones and medical equipment.
"We don't take that decision lightly, it impacts customers. And so we only de-energize when we feel there is warranted fire risk," said Roy. "We care about our communities and honestly, it was such a historic event."
Some residents in Altadena whose homes were destroyed feel the utility company should have done more to protect them.
"You keep telling us that what happened was just unprecedented and that there was nothing they could do," said Marisol Espino, an Altadena resident whose house and family truck were both incinerated in January. "But the majority of us are just not buying it."
It's unclear how much electrical problems on distribution lines might have contributed to damage caused by wildfires in January. Fires could have been sparked and spread by other causes. Winds created flames up to 200 feet long and sent embers flying up to two miles away, according to the LA County report.
But the electrical problems in Altadena may have worsened an already dangerous situation on Jan. 7.
"Additional ignition sources in the neighborhood could be significant in terms of helping the fire to spread and complicating firefighting efforts," said Michael Wara, an attorney at Stanford University who lectures about wildfires.
SoCal Edison increasing rates, despite starting more fires
SoCal Edison is required to report fires that its equipment starts to state authorities. That data shows that SoCal Edison's infrastructure is igniting more fires than it did a decade ago. In 2024, SoCal Edison's equipment ignited 178 fires, up from 39 in 2014, the company's data shows.
But the utility's 2025 data may be incomplete, NPR found.
Firefighters were dispatched at least 47 times to Altadena during the month of January in response to electrical issues, like wires down or arcing, the Los Angeles County Fire Department data shows. One of those times, during the fire at Catherine Road, NPR confirmed that firefighters helped put out a fire that met most of the criteria for ignitions that are required to be reported by utilities to authorities.
When NPR requested SoCal Edison's list of all ignitions during January that involved its equipment, however, the list the company provided did not document any fires that started in Altadena.
"Appropriate SCE personnel must be made aware of the ignition in order for it to be reported," a SoCal Edison representative responded, after NPR asked why the company did not list the fire on Catherine Road.
The destruction the fires caused in January is still front of mind for the residents who lived in Altadena. For months after the fires, construction teams were the only people walking up and down otherwise mostly empty streets. While some businesses and home owners have returned to the neighborhood, many residents remain in temporary housing, unable to move back in until their houses are restored.
That's what happened to the family that lived on Catherine Road. After high levels of toxins were found throughout the tenant unit that burned, the structure was demolished. Tom Ware and Lea Chazin have not yet moved back into their home and have been living in an Airbnb as they battle their insurance company for the money to fix the property.
In July, SoCal Edison announced a program that is expected to start offering direct compensation in the fall to some fire victims that choose to waive their rights to sue the company. But all Altadena residents will soon have to pay more for electricity to SoCal Edison.
But in September, the California Public Utilities Commission granted SoCal Edison permission to charge ratepayers 9% more, starting Oct. 1. The rate hike would cover growing operational and infrastructure costs, SoCal Edison representatives have said.
Some residents resent being asked to pay the utility more when they believe the company is at fault for contributing to fires that burned down their homes.
"It's just so aggravating to me," said Espino. "They just don't want any accountability."
Methodology
Analysis of distribution line faults
Whisker Labs provided data to NPR collected from plug-in sensors that monitor electrical networks in individual homes. The sensors form a network for mapping regional electrical disturbances that originate on the electric utility grid and can detect voltage changes as small as a fraction of a volt.
NPR analyzed Whisker Lab's data between December 27, 2024 and January 8, 2025 from the greater Los Angeles area, identifying events where sensors recorded a change in voltage at the same time. These voltage changes are known as transient faults and are the difference in measured voltage between consecutive readings.
Events were estimated by Whisker Labs to be distribution level if recorded by less than 70% of sensors, or transmission if recorded by 70% or more sensors.
Analysis of LA County Fire Department dispatch logs
NPR analyzed dispatch data from the Los Angeles County Fire Department for the month of January. The information contained responses for zip codes 91001 and 91003 and included dispatches resulting from calls received or requests from field units. Data provided did not include "incidents that were handled as part of the Eaton incident," a representative told NPR.
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