Federal prosecutors sued Southern California Edison, saying its equipment ignited the 2019 Saddle Ridge fire, which burned nearly 9,000 acres and damaged or destroyed more than 100 homes in the San Fernando Valley.

The complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles on Tuesday claims that Edison was negligent in designing, constructing and maintaining its high-voltage transmission line that runs through Sylmar. Equipment on the line is now suspected of causing both the 2019 fire as well as the Hurst fire on Jan. 7.

Edison has acknowledged that its equipment may have ignited the Jan. 7 fire, but it has been arguing for years in a separate lawsuit brought by Saddle Ridge fire victims that its equipment did not start the 2019 fire.

Lawyers for the victims say they have evidence showing the transmission line is not properly grounded, leading to two wildfires in six years. Edison’s lawyers call those claims an “exotic ignition theory” that is wrong.

In the new lawsuit, the federal government is seeking to recover costs for the damage the 2019 fire caused to 800 acres of national forest, including for the destruction of wildlife and habitats. The lawsuit also requests reimbursement for the federal government’s costs of fighting the fire.

“The ignition of the Saddleridge Fire by SCE’s power and transmission lines and equipment is prima facie evidence of SCE’s negligence,” states the complaint, which was filed by acting U.S. Atty. Bill Essayli.

“The United States has made a demand on SCE for payment of the costs and damages incurred by the United States to suppress the Saddleridge Fire and to undertake emergency rehabilitation efforts,” the complaint said. “SCE has not paid any part of the sum.”

David Eisenhauer, an Edison spokesman, said the company was reviewing the federal government’s lawsuit and “will respond through the legal process.”

“Our hearts are with the people and communities that were affected,” he said.

The 2019 wildfire tore through parts of Sylmar, Granada Hills and Porter Ranch, killing at least one person.

The fire ignited under a transmission tower just three minutes after a steel part known as a y-clevis broke on another tower more than two miles away, according to two government investigations into the fire. The equipment failure on that tower caused a fault and surge in power.

In the ongoing lawsuit by victims of the 2019 fire, the plaintiffs argue that the power surge traveled along the transmission lines, causing some of the towers miles away to become so hot that they ignited the dry vegetation underneath one of them. Government investigators also found evidence of burning at the base of a second tower nearby, according to their reports.

The lawyers for the victims say the same problem — that some towers are not properly grounded — caused the Hurst fire on the night of Jan. 7.

“The evidence will show that five separate fires ignited at five separate SCE transmission tower bases in the same exact manner as the fire that started the Saddle Ridge fire,” the lawyers wrote in a court filing this summer.

In that filing, the lawyers included parts of a deposition they took of an L.A. Fire Department captain who said he believed that Edison was “deceptive” for not informing the department that its equipment failed just minutes before the 2019 blaze ignited, and for having an employee offer to buy key surveillance video from that night from a business next to one of its towers.

Edison has denied its employee offered to buy the video. A spokeswoman said the utility did not tell the fire department that its equipment failed because it happened at a tower miles away from where the fire ignited.

Residents who witnessed both fires told The Times they saw fires burning under transmission towers on the evening of the 2019 fire and the night of Jan. 7.

Roberto Delgado and his wife, Ninoschka Perez, can see the towers from their Sylmar home. They told The Times they saw a fire on Jan. 7 under the same tower where investigators say the 2019 fire started.

The family had to quickly flee in the case of each fire.

“We were traumatized,” Delgado said. “If I could move my family away from here I would.”

The Jan. 7 fire burned through 799 acres and required thousands of people to evacuate. Firefighters extinguished the blaze before it destroyed any homes.

Southern California’s catastrophic fires have rocked the stock of Edison International, the parent company of Southern California Edison, as accusations and lawsuits about the utility’s potential role in starting the fires mount.

Shares of Edison International closed up 5% at $61.30 on Wednesday after plunging 23% this month, making it one of the worst performers on the Standard & Poor’s 500. The rebound came after Ladenburg Thalmann analysts upgraded their rating of the stock to neutral from sell, saying that their target price of $56.50 a share reflected worst-case outcomes associated with the current wildfires.

“At this time, it is too early to discern what the outcomes will be with respect to the impact of the fires on the California Wildfire Insurance Fund solvency and/or the future earnings of Edison International,” the analysts wrote, according to Barron’s. “An initial assessment of SCE’s role in the start of the fires will likely not occur until the summer of 2025 at the earliest.”

State lawmakers established the wildfire fund in the wake of wildfires several years ago after Wall Street investors lost confidence and ratings agencies threatened to downgrade California’s investor-owned utilities.

Market analyst Zacks downgraded Edison International stock from outperform to neutral after the fires started last week. Zacks predicted Edison’s operating revenue would increase during 2025 and 2026, while acknowledging that “the company has been incurring significant wildfire-related costs” and that “higher-than-expected decommissioning costs could materially impact the company’s operating results.”

RBC Capital Markets, another analyst, had a loftier view of Edison as recently as October when it called the utility “a high quality operator, with investor confidence around wildfire risk improving from best in class mitigation efforts.”

The fallout from the fires is an abrupt disruption for a company that had been surging in recent months. In its most recent quarterly report, the company posted a profit of $516 million, or $1.33 per share, compared with $155 million, or 40 cent per share, in the third quarter of last year.

“Our team has achieved remarkable success over the last several years managing unprecedented climate challenges, making our operations more resilient and positioning us strongly for the growth ahead,” President Pedro J. Pizarro said in the report.

Fire agencies are investigating whether downed Southern California Edison utility equipment played a role in igniting the 800-acre Hurst fire near Sylmar, company officials have acknowledged.

The company issued a report Friday saying that a downed conductor was discovered at a tower in the vicinity of the Hurst fire, but that it “does not know whether the damage observed occurred before or after the start of the fire.” The fire is nearly fully contained, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

SCE is also under scrutiny for possibly being involved in sparking the Eaton fire that has burned 14,000 acres and destroyed thousands of structures, wiping out whole swaths of Altadena, where at least 16 people died in the blaze.

On Tuesday the Newport Beach law firm of Bridgford, Gleason & Artinian filed a mass action complaint in Los Angeles Superior Court against SCE regarding the Eaton fire on behalf of victims including Jeremy Gursey, whose Altadena property was destroyed in the fire.

“Based upon our investigation, our discussions with various consultants, the public statements of SCE, and the video evidence of the fire’s origin, we believe that the Eaton Fire was ignited because of SCE’s failure to de-energize its overhead wires which traverse Eaton Canyon—despite a red flag PDS wind warning issued by the national weather service the day before the ignition of the fire,” lawyer Richard Bridgford said in a statement.

The firm said it has represented more than 10,000 California fire victims in past suits against Pacific Gas & Electric Co. and SCE. Bridgford told Yahoo Finance that his inbox is full of Southern California residents seeking to participate in the Eaton fire lawsuit and that he anticipates “there’ll be hundreds joining.”

The most extreme level of a red flag fire warning, a “particularly dangerous situation,” returned to parts of Los Angeles and Ventura counties Wednesday morning, heightening concerns about the potential for new fires.

“The danger has not yet passed,” Los Angeles Fire Department Chief Kristin Crowley said during a news conference Wednesday. “So please prioritize your safety.”