Southern California Edison this week is taking down an idle transmission line that has become the central figure in the internal investigation into the cause of the monster Eaton fire.

SCE is collaborating with attorneys suing the utility to analyze the Mesa-Sylmar line, which has been idle for more than 50 years but is suspected of becoming reenergized in the high winds and sparking the fire that tore through Altadena.

On Tuesday, April 22, Edison workers began removing the conductors and power lines in preparation for disassembly of two towers beginning April 30. One of those towers — known as Tower 208 — is at the site where the fire is believed to have originated before it destroyed nearly 7,000 structures and killed 18 people. A separate state and county investigation is still underway.

SCE workers were lowered via helicopter onto Tower 208 around 10:30 a.m. Tuesday to begin disconnecting the power lines that will later be spooled onto a truck.

On the hill below the tower, about 10 people observed the workers. A helicopter brought in a plank that workers attached to the top of the tower to allow them to stand on and work from.

The three crew members labored from the top of the tower for about two hours before helicopters returned to retrieve them.

Edison International Chief Executive Pedro Pizarro recently told the Los Angeles Times that Tower 208 may have become reenergized through a phenomenon called “induction,” in which the electromagnetic field of a nearby active line reenergizes an idle line. That has become a leading theory in SCE’s investigation into the cause of the fire, Pizarro said.

Built 102 years ago, the Mesa-Sylmar line was taken out of commission after it was damaged in the San Fernando earthquake in 1971. SCE left the structures standing rather than remove them. More than 130 lawsuits have been filed against the utility, blaming it for sparking the devastating blaze either through molten material falling from a reenergized power line or through an exposed ground wire that was in contact with the brush.

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