A power line "faulted" more than three hours before sparking the largest of Southern California's devastating wildfires last fall, state investigators reported Wednesday.
San Diego Gas & Electric Co. reported the first of four faults on the line on Oct. 21, 2007 at 8:53 a.m. and another at 12:23 p.m., 12 minutes before the blaze started, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. The last fault occurred at 3:25 p.m.
Hot particles "landed in light grassy fuels," an investigator wrote. "These fuels ignited, and the fire spread with the wind in a westerly direction."
The power line was arcing about 56 feet from the origin of the Witch Fire, the report said.
The Witch Fire blew into the heart of north San Diego from chaparral-covered canyons, leaving two dead and destroying 1,141 homes. It merged with the Guejito Fire to burn nearly 200,000 acres.
The report reaffirms earlier findings that SDG&E's power lines sparked three major fires in last fall's firestorms - the Witch, Guejito and Rice fires. For the first time, investigators say a "lashing wire" from a Cox Communications cable struck power lines to cause the Guejito Fire.
The voluminous report - posted on the agency's Web site at www.fire.ca.gov - comes after displaced homeowners filed several lawsuits against SDG&E, a unit of Sempra Energy.
The San Diego utility said the conclusions came as no surprise and maintained the report would be inadmissible in court as evidence of liability.
"It's clear that, with or without power lines, we live in a very fire-prone region," the company said in a statement, pointing to major fires throughout California in recent weeks. "No electrical power system can be 100 percent protected from the kind of severe weather we experienced last fall."
SDG&E outlined a series of steps it has taken to limit the risk of fire, such as replacing wood poles with steel poles and expanding aerial inspections.
The reports don't cover any of the other fires in Southern California last year.
