Wildfire de-energisation and fire damage hit Southern California Edison network in Palisades and Eaton fires

In January 2025, widespread power outages affected more than four million customers of Southern California Edison across Los Angeles, Ventura, Orange, San Bernardino, Riverside and San Diego counties in California, as the Palisades and Eaton fires and high winds swept the region. Public reporting described two distinct types of outage: those caused by direct fire damage to grid infrastructure, including substations, transmission lines and distribution circuits; and precautionary de-energisation of high fire risk circuits during extreme wind conditions, a practice commonly known as a public safety power shutoff. At the point of reporting, around 178,000 customers were under shutoff orders, with a further 420,000 under consideration. Restoration proceeded in stages, with more than 700,000 customers reconnected within about a day, critical facilities among them. The ignition sources of the Palisades and Eaton fires remained under formal investigation at the time of reporting.

Public reporting on the event described the following conditions rather than confirmed findings: (1) extreme weather, with high winds, low humidity and dry vegetation creating conditions in which any ignition source could produce a fast spreading fire; (2) a fire season extending outside the months historically regarded as the peak risk period; (3) heavy accumulated fuel loads in the affected landscapes; (4) extensive housing development in the wildland urban interface, placing property and people close to fire prone terrain; (5) precautionary de-energisation reduces the chance of network related ignition but imposes hardship on customers, and activation criteria for Southern California Edison were reported as subject to ongoing regulatory review; (6) network hardening measures such as covered conductors, undergrounding and additional sensing and inspection were reported as in progress but not complete across all high risk areas. The specific ignition sources of the Palisades and Eaton fires were under investigation and are not attributed here.

1. Operators in fire prone regions should assess whether precautionary de-energisation of high risk circuits is appropriate for their network, and document the wind, humidity and fuel condition thresholds that would trigger it.
2. The choice between keeping circuits energised and de-energising them affects customer safety and welfare in both directions, so the criteria should be agreed in advance with the regulator and communicated to affected communities rather than settled during an event.
3. A de-energisation protocol requires supporting capability before it is relied upon: weather forecasting feeds, circuit level fire risk assessment, customer notification channels, a restoration sequence and a post event review process.
4. Customers dependent on electricity for medical or other critical needs should be identified in advance, with contact and support arrangements tested before the fire season.
5. Network hardening measures such as covered conductors, undergrounding and additional inspection reduce but do not remove ignition risk, so residual risk during the multi year rollout should be stated explicitly in risk registers and to regulators.
6. Joint working arrangements with fire services, emergency management and public health bodies should be established and exercised before an event, since fire damage and precautionary shutoffs can occur simultaneously across the same area.
7. The geographic distribution of fire risk can change, so operators should periodically revisit which parts of their network are treated as high fire risk rather than relying on historical classifications.

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