Causes for the LA fires, beyond ultra dry and windy climate conditions, haven’t been established. But home grid monitoring is likely to play a role in future prevention.
The company, Whisker Labs, said data from its sensors showed that at least some power lines near the ignitions of the Palisades, Eaton and Hurst fires remained energized before the blazes began. In 2023, the company’s sensors provided some of the earliest evidence that a wildfire in Maui, Hawaii, might have been caused by power lines.
The company operates 14,000 sensors in Southern California that can detect abnormal activity on power lines. Those sensors, which help predict and prevent electrical fires, signaled that the windy conditions were causing problems like trees touching power lines — a possible sign that utilities should have cut power in the area.
“The grid in the vicinity of the ignition locations clearly was stressed with an increasingly significant number of faults in the preceding hours,” said Bob Marshall, founder and chief executive of Whisker Labs, which is based in Germantown, Md. “I am not saying that any of those faults are the cause of the fire. We cannot say that. Obviously, there are investigations underway to determine that.”