Southern California Edison agreed to pay $80 million to cover the costs and damages of the 2017 Thomas Fire, a massive fire in Ventura and Santa Barbara counties that killed two people and then triggered a massive mudflow that resulted in 23 deaths.
The Thomas Fire, which burned more than 280,000 acres and destroyed more than 1,000 structures, ignited on Dec. 4, 2017, after high winds caused two Southern California Edisons to collide, firefighters found.
Combined with another fire set by the company's equipment, it became the eighth largest wildfire in state history, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.
The utility agreed, in a deal finalized Friday afternoon, to pay the federal government to resolve claims on behalf of the U.S. Forest Service, the Justice Department announced Monday. Edison did so without admitting wrongdoing or guilt.
In a news release, the Justice Department called it “the largest U.S. wildfire cost recovery settlement in the Central District of California.”
“This record settlement provides significant compensation to taxpayers for the high costs of fighting the Thomas Fire and for widespread damage to public lands,” said First Assistant United States Attorney. said Joseph T. McNally.
Southern California Edison did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
According to firefighters, the Thomas Fire started in two locations that December afternoon. The first ignition point was in Anlauf Canyon and the second was at the top of Koenigstein Road in Ventura County. The two fires joined together and formed the Thomas fire.
In 2020, the federal government filed a lawsuit on behalf of the Forest Service against Edison to recover the costs of fighting the fire and for extensive damage it caused to the Los Padres National Forest, the U.S. attorney's office said in its news release.
The Justice Department alleged that Edison owned, maintained and operated the power lines that sparked both fires. In Anlauf Canyon, the government alleged that Edison's power lines made contact with each other and ignited dry vegetation below. On Koenigstein Road, the federal litigation alleged that a transformer on an Edison utility pole failed and caused an energized power line to fall to the ground, also igniting dry vegetation.
Edison previously acknowledged that his equipment likely started a fire on Koenigstein Road in Santa Paula, but his own investigators concluded that the company was probably not responsible for the second-largest fire that started in Anlauf Canyon.
The utility agreed to pay the $80 million settlement within 60 days of the agreement's effective date, according to the U.S. attorney's office.
Utility-ignited wildfires in recent years have devastated vast areas of the state, killing people and destroying small towns in their wake.
The 2018 Camp Fire, which investigators say was caused by a failed Pacific Gas & Electric transmission line in the Sierra Nevada foothills, became the deadliest wildfire in California history, destroying the town of Paradise and killing 85 people.
Edison has paid millions in recent years linked to wildfires. In 2021, the utility agreed to pay $550 million in fines to the California Public Utilities Commission's safety and compliance division for its role in five wildfires.
The settlement included fines and penalties related to the Thomas, Woolsey, Rye, Meyers and Liberty fires, which together burned more than 380,000 acres and destroyed thousands of homes.
Investigators with the Commission's Safety and Enforcement Division determined that Southern California Edison violated state safety regulations, which caused the fires to start, they said.
