The Brief

The deadly and destructive Eaton Fire was caused by Southern California Edison equipment, according to two reports released Tuesday by the L.A. County Fire Department. The determination is in line with theories shared by the utility itself several months after the fire ignited in January last year.

The L.A. County Fire Department’s arson unit, with assistance from the state’s Cal Fire, was tasked with leading the investigation into the cause of the fire over the last 18 months.

Investigators ultimately determined that arcing electrical lines near an Edison transmission tower in Eaton Canyon “ejected hot metal particles” that fell into dry vegetation at the tower’s base. Twelve seconds later, what became the Eaton Fire ignited.

“The cause of this fire is ELECTRICAL in nature,” investigators concluded.

At least 19 people died and close to 10,000 homes and businesses were destroyed in the fire that began Jan. 7, 2025, and wasn’t fully contained until Jan. 31.

An Edison spokesperson said the company is “currently reviewing” the report, but declined to share if it planned to dispute the findings.

“ We have taken the potential role in the start of the fire very seriously from the beginning,” said spokesperson Scott Johnson. “ As we've previously said, Southern California Edison believes it is likely that its equipment was associated with the ignition of the Eaton Fire.”

Johnson pointed to the company’s compensation program, which has offered more than $775 million in claims to more than 4,000 applicants.

L.A. County Supervisor Kathryn Barger, who represents Altadena, the unincorporated community that experienced the majority of the fire’s destruction and where all of the deaths occurred, said the report brings more “insight and answers.”

“While the report does not close this chapter, I hope it brings greater clarity and a measure of closure to those who have endured so much,” Barger said in a statement.

But for many Eaton Fire survivors, including Zaire Calvin, the report brings little closure.

“ I'm very angry about the fact that this has already been known, and that Edison still hasn't accepted responsibility,” said Calvin, whose sister, Evelyn McClendon, died in the fire and who lost his home and multiple family homes.

“ Edison cares about their record profits,” he added. “Edison cares about their money. So again, it just goes back to when is Edison gonna care about the actual people who are in the community?”

The L.A. County Fire Department report comes just days after Southern California Edison shared its latest quarterly earnings, logging $669 million in net income, up $193 million from the year before. The year the Eaton Fire sparked, the utility’s parent company, Edison International, made record profits of $4.5 billion. Also in 2025, CEO Pedro Pizarro received a 20% pay raise.

The long-awaited investigation from the county Fire Department has also been a subject of discussion at trial hearings for the lawsuits against the utility. Edison lawyers have argued that without an official cause of the fire, a trial date cannot be set.

Amanda Riddle, an attorney for plaintiffs suing the utility, said that point is now moot.

“It's just one less excuse that Edison has to delay compensating the victims of the Eaton Fire,” she said.

Riddle said her team will bring the Fire Department’s report to a case management hearing later this month. Meanwhile, a trial date has been set for Jan. 25, 2027.

Nearly 300,000 California K-12 students experienced homelessness in the 2024-25 school year, the highest numbers ever recorded by UCLA researchers and a 10% increase from the prior peak in the 2018-19 school year.

“The sheer magnitude of how many students are experiencing homelessness and how much it's increased, that was the biggest finding for us,” said Grace Kim, study co-author and research analyst at the UCLA Center for the Transformation of Schools.

Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino and Ventura counties account for half of the students experiencing homelessness in the state. About 62,000 — nearly 5% — of L.A. County students experience homelessness in the 2024-25 school year.

Researchers at UCLA’s Center for the Transformation of Schools examined data collected by the California Department of Education between the 2017-18 and 2024-25 school years, including homeless student enrollment, attendance and test scores.

Schools are required to identify students who lack stable housing and provide resources, such as transportation, so they can access the same quality of education as a housed child.

Students experiencing homelessness are more likely to frequently miss school and fall behind academically. While many students have started to score higher on the state’s standardized math and reading tests following pandemic-related declines, the percentage of students experiencing homelessness who meet the benchmarks is about 20% lower than their housed peers, the research found.

Black, American Indian and Alaska Native students experienced higher rates of homelessness than their peers of other races — about 1 in 12.

California’s most recent budget includes $116 million to help schools identify and support students experiencing homelessness. The report’s authors say while “encouraging,” more than one-time funding is needed to support students experiencing homelessness.

“Having integrated systems of support is also a super important factor,” Kim said. “The reason why we see these gaps in terms of academic achievement or chronic absenteeism … it's not [students’] fault.”

Cleanup is just beginning for a contaminated industrial site in South Gate, according to U.S. Environmental Protection Agency officials who are leading the effort.

The small southeast L.A. city was built on industry — in the early 20th century it boomed with auto, chemical and other manufacturers.

That legacy also left it with three Superfund sites, areas designated by the federal government as highly contaminated with hazardous waste.

The three sites are all clustered on a large lot framed by Southern and Rayo avenues. A residential neighborhood is nearby.

“This site is less than 50 yards away from a home, so we want to make sure that we clean it to a point where we can feel confident,” said South Gate Mayor Joshua Barron.

South Gate is home to about 90,000 people, the majority of whom are Latino. The median household income is about $74,500 and the state has identified the city and surrounding communities to be disproportionately burdened by pollution and its health effects.

This site, dubbed the Southern Avenue Industrial Area, housed a screw manufacturing business for 30 years, then a carpet adhesive plant. Both businesses are now defunct and the site was designated by the federal government as a Superfund site in 2012.

The pollution at this property was compounded by pollution from companies next door.

One of the two adjacent Superfund sites was used by Cooper Drum Co., a steel drum recycling plant. A group of Cooper Drum’s former customers, including chemical manufacturers and oil companies, are paying for part of that cleanup. The other site, previously operated by an aircraft rivet and conveyor belt manufacturer, is still in the analysis and planning stages.

At the Southern Avenue site where the EPA broke ground Tuesday, analyses commissioned by the agency found widespread lead and other toxic contamination in the soil, as well as a plume of trichloroethylene, a carcinogen, in the groundwater.

Officials say the plume has not affected the deeper aquifer South Gate and other southeast L.A. cities rely on for drinking water.

In 1986, the city closed water wells contaminated by the neighboring Cooper Drum site.

EPA project manager Kelia Liang explains the cleanup effort in South Gate on Tuesday.

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Erin Stone

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LAist

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“ The water is safe to drink,” said Mike Montgomery, superfund director for the EPA. “What we're trying to do is prevent it from becoming impacted.”

EPA officials estimate soil cleanup will take about two months. Groundwater cleanup planning will start in 2027 and could take a year or more. The whole effort is estimated to cost between $45 million and $60 million, primarily through federal dollars.

The summer heat may be sweltering at the moment in Southern California, but predictions about this winter’s El Niño show it could be the strongest on record.

So the LAist newsroom wants to know: What questions do you have? (You can submit below.)

We can tell you now that El Niño is a climate pattern that happens roughly every two to seven years, and is one of the most powerful drivers of the Earth’s weather.

During an El Niño event, the central and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean off the coast of South America warms to above normal temperatures. The warm ocean adds moisture and heat to the atmosphere, influencing atmospheric circulation, temperatures and precipitation on a massive scale.

El Niño typically results in mild weather in the northern United States and wetter conditions in the southern part of the country.

In Southern California, we could start to see the effects of El Niño in the late fall or early winter. Generally, those effects include significant rain and high sea levels and the consequences that come with them, such as flooding, mudslides and coastal erosion.

Forecasters say there is a more than 90% chance of a powerful El Niño event this year, and a 70% chance that it’s record-setting.

That said, uncertainty remains around how exactly this winter’s El Niño will play out here.

So as you gear up for an El Niño winter, ask us your questions and we’ll do our best to get answers in the months ahead.

The company behind the Garden Grove hazardous waste scare earlier this year is planning to resume full operations in late September, subject to an independently monitored, court-approved safety plan.

GKN Aerospace employs 500 people at its Garden Grove facility.

What happened?

GKN Aerospace said in a news release that it had permanently decommissioned the tank that set off the hazmat scare in May and forced some 50,000 nearby residents to evacuate.

Removal of the tank is pending review and approval from state regulatory agencies, according to an emailed response from Salma Elshakre, a spokesperson for the Orange County Health Care Agency, which is overseeing the cleanup.

All of the toxic chemical, methyl methacrylate (also known as MMA), has been removed from nearby tanks as well, Elshakre said.

What about the compensation fund?

This week, the company also announced a forthcoming $100 million compensation fund for affected residents and businesses. GKN expects to release details on how to apply in the coming months.

What's next?

At least 39 lawsuits have been filed against the company in conjunction with the hazmat incident, according to a GKN webpage set up to track the fallout. The company pledged to explain the legal effect of participating in the compensation fund before it is launched.

What's the community reaction?

Garden Grove Mayor Stephanie Klopfenstein said in a statement that the city “welcome[s] this progress and will continue to expect GKN to address the broader effects on our community.”

A coalition of community groups called GKN Out of Garden Grove Coalition wants the city to shut down the GKN plant completely. The coalition plans to release a report documenting the company’s alleged history of hazardous waste failures at a news conference Tuesday at 5:30 p.m. at 11300 Stanford Ave. in Garden Grove.