Lawyers representing victims of the Eaton Fire have released a new three-dimensional reconstruction of the blaze's first moments, arguing that the footage strengthens the case that Southern California Edison's equipment started the January 2025 disaster. Southern California Edison says the official cause remains under investigation and has not accepted legal responsibility.
What the new analysis shows
The reconstruction was produced by attorneys with LA Fire Justice, led by plaintiffs' lawyer Mikal Watts, who described it as a new "perspective" built from surveillance video captured at the Gerrish Swim and Tennis Club in Pasadena in the early hours of January 7, 2025, ABC7 reported. The attorneys say the rendering shows two bright flashes seconds apart, followed by flame, on a transmission line in Eaton Canyon that was idle at the time — a sequence they argue lines up with electrical fault data recorded by Edison's own equipment.
The footage was produced by lawyers suing the utility, not by an independent government investigator — a distinction Edison has emphasized.
Edison's response
Southern California Edison has not directly addressed the new 3D rendering. When earlier footage from the same camera surfaced this month, an Edison spokesperson said it showed "the same two sparks" the company had already seen in previously disclosed video, according to ABC7's earlier reporting. The utility has acknowledged that its lines may be connected to the fire's origin but disputes bearing full responsibility for the devastation, and it has countersued Los Angeles County agencies and local water companies, arguing their actions worsened the fire's spread. Edison says its own investigation of the idle line has no set completion date.
The official cause of the Eaton Fire remains under investigation by state and local agencies, which have not issued a formal determination.
A disaster still being measured
The Eaton Fire was among the most destructive in California history, killing at least 17 people as it tore through Altadena and parts of Pasadena in January 2025 and leveling thousands of structures. (Precise death and structure tolls have been refined over time; an independent review cited by CBS Los Angeles examined the emergency response.)
A mass case heading to trial
The reconstruction lands as litigation against Edison has swelled into one of the largest wildfire cases in state history, with thousands of plaintiffs and a trial expected in 2027. Edison says its voluntary compensation program has paid out and offered hundreds of millions of dollars to claimants, though some survivors say the sums fall short of their losses.
For now, the legal value of the 3D analysis lies less in any single frame than in the accumulating body of visual evidence the plaintiffs are assembling — and in whether courts and regulators ultimately conclude that an Edison line, and not some other source, lit the fire that reshaped Altadena.
