Two utility companies in California told state regulators they each sustained outages just minutes before a pair of destructive wildfires erupted last week. (Cause of each fire is still under investigation)
Camp Fire:
Pacific Gas & Electric notified regulators there was a problem on an electrical transmission line minutes before the Camp Fire erupted on Thursday and destroyed the town of Paradise.
The company said in a one-paragraph summary filed Thursday with state utility regulators that it had experienced an outage on the line at 6:15 a.m., about 15 minutes before the fire started.
https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/5032723/Electric-Safety-Incident-Reported-Pacific-Gas.pdfWoolsey Fire:
The cause of the 91,572-acre Woolsey Fire remained under investigation Monday but Southern California Edison reported to a state agency that there was an outage on an electrical circuit near where it started as Santa Ana winds blew through the region.
https://www.edison.com/content/dam/eix/documents/Woolsey_Electric_Safety_Report.pdf