Faults along the Los Angeles power grid alarmingly soared in the same areas where major wildfires raged this week, sparking a new theory that they may have caused the devastating crisis.
Bob Marshall, the chief executive of Whisker Labs, a company that monitors electrical activity, told Fox News that the firm saw spikes in faults in the hours before the Eaton, Palisades and Hurst Fires.
Marshall said data shows the power was not immediately shut off after the faults surged, and may have been caused by ‘tree limbs touching wires or wires blowing in the wind and touching.’
‘That creates a spark in a fault, and we detect all of those things,’ Marshall said. Faulty electrical equipment, a sudden surge in electrical demand or earthquake tremors are also possible causes of the surges.
In the worst-hit Pacific Palisades area, there were 63 faults in the two-to-three hours before it ignited, with 18 coming in the hour before it started Tuesday.
The Eaton Fire, near Altadena, saw 317 grid faults in the hours before ignition, Marshall said, and the Hurst Fire saw around 230 faults. On a typical day, he said the company registers very few.
Although investigators have yet to determine the cause of the fires, the grid faults raise the possibility that sparks from the faults ignited dried out vegetation, with high winds then carrying embers across the region.
It comes as evacuation orders for the Palisades Fire reached the glitzy enclave of Brentwood, where a number of A-listers have mansions that are now at risk of being lost.