The county says electrical equipment owned by the electric utility is to blame for the blaze that killed 17 people and destroyed 9,400 buildings.
Los Angeles County sued Southern California Edison and its parent company on Wednesday, blaming the utility’s equipment for causing the deadly Eaton fire in January.
The county’s lawsuit is the most prominent case brought against Edison, which is also facing scores of lawsuits filed by victims of the fire that killed 17 people and destroyed more than 9,400 buildings near Altadena and Pasadena, Calif.
The cities of Pasadena and Sierra Madre are also filing suits against Edison for damages that include the use of taxpayer resources and destruction of public infrastructure during the fire, the county said.
“We are committed to seeking justice for the Altadena community and the taxpayers of Los Angeles County,” Dawyn R. Harrison, counsel for Los Angeles County, said in a statement.
The official cause of the Eaton fire remains under investigation by the State Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.
An Edison spokeswoman, Kathleen Dunleavy, said the utility had been reviewing the lawsuits and would respond to the complaints in court.
“Our hearts continue to be with the communities affected by the wildfires,” Ms. Dunleavy said.
In its lawsuit, Los Angeles County said videos, eyewitness accounts and other evidence made clear that Edison equipment caused the Eaton fire on Jan. 7. Preliminary reviews by fire investigators placed the origin of the fire in Eaton Canyon, where Edison maintains four active and three inactive transmission lines.
A gas station video that appeared to show the beginnings of the fire and data that suggest there were electrical faults on Edison’s transmission system, both of which were first reported by The New York Times, prompted the utility to expand its own investigation into the cause of the fire.
In a letter to state regulators, the utility said it was examining the available evidence and equipment to determine if its equipment might have been involved in starting the fire.
Edison also noted in the letter that there might be a connection between its equipment and another fire that started the same day, the Hurst fire in Sylmar.
The Eaton and Hurst fires were among several blazes that burned across the Los Angeles area in January as a storm ripped through Southern California with winds reaching as high as 100 m.p.h. In addition to the Eaton fire, 12 people died in the Palisades fire, which devastated the coastal neighborhood of Pacific Palisades.
The Palisades fire also remains under investigation.