LOS ANGELES _ With extreme red flag warnings issued amid powerful winds, firefighters were hoping to increase containment of the Getty fire in Brentwood on Wednesday and prevent it from flaring up.
The fire, which burned 12 homes Monday, was 15% contained and had scorched more than 600 acres. About 7,000 homes remained evacuated.
The Getty fire broke out shortly after 1:30 a.m. Monday along the 405 Freeway near the Getty Center and spread to the south and west.
It was started by a tree branch that fell on power lines, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said Tuesday evening. Video shows the branch breaking off a eucalyptus tree and sparking the fire in the 1900 block of North Sepulveda Boulevard.
The power lines are operated by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, according to a fire official. The agency said it was cooperating with the investigation.
DWP General Manager Marty Adams said the utility had cleared brush along the Sepulveda Pass in July. The DWP also said in a statement that there was "no failure of electrical equipment."
Unlike Pacific Gas & Electric and Southern California Edison, the state's largest power providers, the DWP does not shut off service to customers before or during a wind event, in part because the utility covers an urban area.
"Our systems are completely different," Andrew Kendall, senior assistant manager of the DWP's power system, said at a board meeting earlier this month. "We have a 465-square-mile service territory. PG&E's is 70,000 square miles, Edison is 50,000 square miles."
Kendall said the DWP is "in an area where we're no more than a five- to seven-minute LAFD response. So right now, at this time and based on previous history, we don't feel we're at a point where it's prudent to do a shutdown."
