Explanation of an Inferno May Lie With a Scorched but Silent Witness

High tension was in the air Wednesday as efforts were made to get to the bottom of the 1996 Calabasas brush fire controversy.

Not just at the Southern California Edison Co. offices raided by law enforcement officers looking for evidence of negligence leading to the 1996 Calabasas fire. But also at power pole No. 2274942E, fingered by fire investigators as the starting point for the Oct. 21 wind-whipped blaze that burned 13,900 acres, destroyed nearly a dozen homes and injured 11 people.

Seven 66,000-volt high-tension wires hummed atop the 60-foot pole, which is down an embankment and about 50 feet from eastbound lanes of the Ventura Freeway.

The only answer to the cause of the fire, however, seemed to be at the bottom-- along the ground and at the base of the pole.

State fire officials suspect that the brush fire was ignited by sparks from trees rubbing against Edison Co. power lines atop the pole. Investigators raided company offices Monday and Tuesday seeking tree-trimming records amid suggestions that Edison may have removed evidence from around the pole after the fire.

At pole No. 2274942E, nothing appeared Wednesday to have been moved since the fire, however.

The bottom four feet of the power pole remained scorched. So were the bases of 22 small eucalyptus trees near the pole--including trees growing upwind from it during the fierce Santa Ana windstorm.

Although it might have appeared to freeway motorists Wednesday that the young trees’ branches were growing directly into the power lines, no branches were closer than about 15 feet to high-tension wires.

So could a cigarette tossed from a car--not a rubbing branch--have started the fire?

Not likely, state fire officials indicated Wednesday.

“Trained investigators can tell a fire’s origin,” said Karen Terrill, a spokeswoman for the state Division of Forestry in Sacramento.

Terrill said state law requires that vegetation be removed from within 10 feet of power lines capable of causing sparks. She said documents sought in the two days of Edison Co. raids will attempt to determine whether the company had the offending branch pruned off after the fire.

It’s important because the utility might be liable for the $6-million cost of fighting the fire if negligence can be proved.

Edison officials continued to declined to comment on the investigation.

But company spokesman Steve Conroy said the utility takes tree-trimming seriously.

The company spent $15 million pruning 400,000 trees near its utility lines in 1996, he said.

There was no comment, either, from pole No. 2274942E.

Aside from the roar of traffic on the nearby freeway, the only other sound was the rustling of eucalyptus tree leaves.