A New 3D Analysis of the Eaton Fire — and the Questions It Raises About Edison.

On June 28, 2026, ABC7 Los Angeles reported that a new 3D video analysis of the January 7, 2025 Eaton Fire is sharpening the central question hanging over the deadliest blaze in recent Los Angeles County history: did equipment owned by Southern California Edison ignite it?

The analysis builds on surveillance footage from the Gerrish Swim and Tennis Club in Pasadena that appears to capture two bright flashes near an Edison transmission tower minutes before the fire exploded across Altadena. According to the attorneys who commissioned the rendering, the new perspective lets viewers “see the flame drop from the top to the bottom” of the tower. The Eaton Fire killed 19 people and destroyed more than 9,000 structures.

The legal stakes are enormous and not yet resolved. Edison’s own CEO has said the company’s equipment is “likely the cause.” The U.S. Department of Justice has sued. But no official cause has been declared, and SCE has not been found liable. This page lays out what the new analysis shows, what the fire cost, what investigators are examining, and where the accountability question stands — with the precision the evidence demands.

• 19 dead — confirmed killed in the Eaton Fire, with thousands of homes lost — the fifth-deadliest wildfire in California history · Source: CAL FIRE incident data; Wikipedia tally
• 9,000+ structures — destroyed (9,418 destroyed, 1,071 damaged) across roughly 14,000 acres of Altadena and the San Gabriel foothills · Source: CAL FIRE; Wikipedia
• 'Likely the cause' — how Edison International CEO Pedro Pizarro now describes SCE equipment's role — after the company first declined to accept responsibility · Source: KTLA; ABC7
• An idle 'zombie' line — a decades-dormant transmission line SCE told the CPUC it is investigating, on a theory it briefly re-energized through 'induction' · Source: KTLA; Utility Dive
• Trial set for Jan. 2027 — the consolidated victim and insurer litigation against SCE heads toward trial; the company faces roughly 1,000 lawsuits · Source: ABC7; Wisner Baum tracker
• $24B–$45B — early estimated range of total Eaton Fire losses — large enough to threaten California's $21 billion Wildfire Fund · Source: Bond Buyer; Utility Dive

The footage at the center of the story came from security cameras at the Gerrish Swim and Tennis Club in Pasadena, which captured the hillside above Eaton Canyon on the night of January 7, 2025. According to attorneys for Altadena homeowners, the video shows two bright flashes roughly three seconds apart at about 6:11 p.m. — near the base of an Edison transmission tower — minutes before hurricane-force Santa Ana winds drove the fire into the foothill neighborhoods below.

The newly released element is a 3D rendering that re-projects the flat surveillance image into a modeled scene. Lead attorney Mikal Watts told ABC7 that the added perspective lets viewers track the sequence the plaintiffs allege: an initial flash on the lines, falling embers, a second flash, and then fire growing rapidly. “Because of the angle of this 12th perspective that was just released,” Watts said, “we’re actually able to see the flame drop from the top to the bottom just like we said it was.” It is an advocate’s analysis, prepared for litigation — not a finding by a neutral investigator — and that distinction matters.

Keep Reading

Society · TDS Watch

A Confused Biden Rant Went Viral — and the Democrats' Reaction Said the Rest

Read →

The Eaton Fire ignited on the evening of January 7, 2025, in Eaton Canyon in the San Gabriel Mountains, and a powerful Santa Ana wind event pushed it down into Altadena. By the time it was fully contained on January 31, after 24 days, it had killed 19 people, destroyed 9,418 structures and damaged another 1,071, and burned roughly 14,000 acres. More than 100,000 residents were evacuated. It ranks as the fifth-deadliest and among the most destructive wildfires in California history.

The damage fell hardest on a historic community. ABC7 and the Los Angeles Times reported the fire destroyed a large share of the homes in Altadena’s historically Black neighborhoods, an area whose roots trace to the Great Migration. Early loss estimates for the fire run into the tens of billions of dollars — one widely cited figure put total damages near $27.5 billion, with broader ranges reaching as high as $45 billion. Those numbers are the backdrop to every legal and regulatory question that follows.

The investigative focus has narrowed to a specific piece of Edison infrastructure: an old transmission line that had sat idle — unused for more than 50 years — on towers above Eaton Canyon. In a February 6, 2025 filing with the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC), SCE said it was investigating whether that dormant line could have become energized, and disclosed evidence of potential arcing and damage to grounding equipment on idle conductors. Investigators and the company have described a leading hypothesis known as induction: a power surge on nearby live lines briefly inducing current in the dormant “zombie” line, producing a spark.

That theory remains, by Edison’s own account, mechanistically unexplained. CEO Pedro Pizarro has said, “We still don’t understand what the mechanism would have been that led to the spark.” The suspect tower and its idle line were dismantled and preserved for examination. CAL FIRE opened its own cause investigation before the fire was even out; as of the most recent public reporting that investigation, along with the CPUC inquiry, remained ongoing and no official cause had been issued.

Keep Reading

Society · TDS Watch

CNN Said It's Not Communism. David Sacks Said Look at Their Platform.

Read →

One thread that recurs across the reporting is how Edison’s public posture has moved over time. In the fire’s immediate aftermath, the company declined to accept responsibility and emphasized that its equipment in the area had not shown the kind of fault typically associated with ignition. Over the following months, as circumstantial evidence accumulated and no alternative cause emerged, that language softened.

By early 2026, Edison International CEO Pedro Pizarro was telling KTLA that SCE equipment was “likely the cause” of the fire, explaining that the accumulating circumstantial evidence and “the absence of another probable cause” had “led us to adjust the statements that we’re making.” In securities disclosures, the company has called it “probable” that it will incur material losses from the fire. None of that is a formal admission of legal liability, and SCE has simultaneously sued Los Angeles County and other parties, arguing their conduct made the disaster worse.

“As we see the absence of another probable cause and, frankly, as time moves on, that has led us to adjust the statements that we're making.”

Pedro Pizarro, CEO, Edison International, to KTLA

The litigation is sprawling. SCE faces roughly 1,000 lawsuits from fire victims, insurers, and government entities, with the consolidated cases pointed toward a January 2027 trial. In September 2025, the U.S. Department of Justice, through the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California, sued Southern California Edison over the Eaton and Fairview fires, seeking more than $40,000,000 to recover federal firefighting and land-restoration costs and alleging the utility’s equipment started the blaze.

The financial exposure is potentially historic. Early estimates of total Eaton Fire losses range from about $24 billion to $45 billion; one analyst estimate pegged SCE’s own potential Eaton liability near $13.5 billion. SCE has indicated it expects to draw on California’s $21 billion Wildfire Fund — the state backstop created under a 2019 law signed by Governor Gavin Newsom (D-CA) — and analysts have warned a large Eaton payout could exhaust it. Per Edison’s SEC filings and Utility Dive, the company has so far recorded on the order of $1 billion in Eaton-related liabilities through a victim compensation program and insurer settlements.

The Eaton Fire sits inside a larger pattern of utility-caused California wildfires — the same dynamic that drove Pacific Gas & Electric into bankruptcy after the 2018 Camp Fire. The accountability questions here are concrete: Why was a 50-year-idle transmission line still strung on towers in a high-wind, high-ignition canyon? What did Edison’s inspection records show about those lines before January 7, 2025? And will the regulatory and criminal review move as fast as the civil litigation that has already set a 2027 trial date?

Those answers will come from CAL FIRE’s origin-and-cause report, the CPUC’s safety review, and the courtroom — not from a litigation rendering, however vivid. What the new 3D analysis does is keep the pressure on, and keep a documented public record building while the official process grinds forward. For the families of the 19 dead and the thousands who lost homes in Altadena, that record is the path to whatever accountability the law ultimately assigns.

More From Civic Intelligence

Society · Crime Problem

A Wrong-Way Driver, a Casino Bus, and a 3 A.M. Fireball on Highway 101

At ~3:17 a.m. on June 26, 2026, a wrong-way car slammed head-on into a Chumash Casino employee bus…

Society · Accountability

NYC Cited Its Own Crews for Breaking the City's Asbestos Rules Tearing Down a Marvel Landmark

New York City's DEP writes the asbestos rules — then on June 12, 2026 a DEP inspector cited the…

Last updated June 29, 2026