Both of the state’s major utility companies have submitted incident reports detailing equipment problems moments before two deadly fires started Thursday.
Southern California Edison and Pacific Gas & Electric Company told the California Public Utilities Commission they experienced power outages in areas near the origins of the Woolsey and Camp fires minutes before the blazes began.
The utilities commission said it is including both reports in its investigation “to assess the compliance of electric facilities with applicable rules and regulations in fire-impacted areas,” spokeswoman Terrie Prosper said in a statement.
Edison said in its report that a circuit in the utility’s Chatsworth substation “relayed’ at 2:22 p.m. on East Street and Alfa Road, the same area where the Woolsey fire broke out. It was reported “out of an abundance of caution,” the report said.
Steve Conroy, an Edison spokesman, said the utility is required to submit a report to the CPUC “any time there’s any kind of incident that may or may not have anything to do with the event.”
All lanes of the 101 Freeway were reopened late Sunday between Valley Circle and Reyes Adobe Road, officials said.
However, offramps from Valley Circle to Liberty Canyon Road will remain closed until further notice.
At 29 dead and counting, the Camp fire in Butte County matched the deadliest fire on state record — a 47-acre scorcher that killed 29 people in Griffith Park in Los Angeles in 1933, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.
Officials expect the death toll to rise in Butte, noting that 200 people are still reported missing.
Here’s some background on the earlier fire from the pages of The Times:
All of Calabasas is now under mandatory evacuation due to the Woolsey fire, the city announced Sunday evening.
The death toll from the Camp fire in Butte County rose to 29, with six new bodies recovered Sunday, officials said.
With the ruins of the town of Paradise still smoldering, search teams have barely had a chance to begin sifting through the blaze’s footprint in the Sierra foothills, where in a matter of hours on Nov. 8 wind-driven flames sprinted downhill and burned more than 6,700 homes and businesses.
The first bodies found after the fire passed were in a car on the road. Some survivors said they had only minutes to escape.
Greg and Alma Cwik didn’t evacuate their Bell Canyon home on Dapplegray Road when the order came out this week.
Instead, the couple used the tools they could find to fight the flames that threatened their home Friday and Saturday. With the power knocked out Thursday night, they managed with LED lights. They used hoses and sprinklers, and when the water was shut off they grabbed buckets filled with pool water to fight the flames.
The couple, who have lived in their home for seven years, pulled the cushions off their outdoor furniture and brought them into the kitchen so they wouldn’t catch fire.
State officials said firefighters from Oregon, Washington, Utah, Idaho and Montana have responded or on their way to battle the California blazes. Gov. Jerry Brown said he’s requesting funding from the federal government.
“This is not the new normal, this is the new abnormal. And this new abnormal will continue certainly in the next 10 to 15 to 20 years. Unfortunately, the best science is telling us that dryness, warmth, drought, all those things, they’re going to intensify,” Brown said. “We have a real challenge here threatening our whole way of life, so we’ve got to pull together.”
“We’re dealing with existential conditions that, once they take off, the certain amount of dryness in the vegetation and the soil and the air, then the winds get up 50, 60 miles an hour, this is what happens,” Brown said. “We’re in a new abnormal. Things like this will be a part of our future.”
By Sunday afternoon, Zuma Beach in Malibu had become something of a way station for Malibu residents who had been forced to evacuate their homes but didn’t want to stray too far in the hopes that an evacuation order might be lifted.
Around 8 a.m., Pam Whitman was walking her dog Trapper along the sands with a mask covering her face and a wooden walking stick in her right hand.
“We wanted to be close to home. We have evacuated to Zuma before,” said Whitman, a Realtor who has lived in Malibu for 40 years.
Malibu City Councilman Jefferson “Zuma Jay” Wagner suffered serious injuries while trying to protect his home from the fire, according to another city councilman, Skylar Peak.
Wagner was hospitalized with injuries related to smoke inhalation sometime Friday after he ignored an evacuation order and tried to fend off flames at a house he owned on Old Chimney Road in Latigo Canyon, Peak said.
Peak said Wagner’s wife told him late Saturday night that the well-known surf shop owner was placed in an intensive care unit at a local hospital, but he is expected to survive. Wagner’s house was destroyed, Peak said.
Brad Delaney stood out outside the Arco station on Pacific Coast Highway with a yellow bandanna around his neck and pajama bottoms under his brown shorts.
He had been holed up at the gas station since Friday and excitedly reported that he was in his 35th hour of overtime for Arco.
His car felt like a safer haven than the store because he could actually see if the blaze was close.