Investigators have not yet determined the cause of the Woolsey fire, but one of the things they're looking at is a brief outage Nov. 8 at a Southern California Edison substation in Ventura County that occurred two minutes before the fire was reported nearby.
Electric utilities’ equipment starts about 10 percent of all wildland fires in California but they can be responsible for up to one-half the acres burned because they often occur during the worst conditions -- high winds, low humidity and high temperatures.
That’s got some questioning whether the big utilities have done enough to reduce the risk.
Read more on LAist.com: SoCal Edison Is Spending Millions To Make Sure Its Power Poles Are Safe From Birthday Balloons
This story is part of Elemental: Covering Sustainability, a multimedia collaboration between Cronkite News, Arizona PBS, KJZZ, KPCC, Rocky Mountain PBS and PBS SoCal.
