Edison International (EIX) stock fell as much as 13% Wednesday after the company shut off power to tens of thousands of customers in Southern California as wildfires raged through the region.
As of Wednesday afternoon, 69,601 customers of Southern California Edison — Edison International’s subsidiary serving the region — were affected by outages, according to the company’s tracker.
Further outages could affect another 42,000 customers, data from the utility showed. Outages across California as a stood at roughly 400,000 as of Wednesday afternoon, according to a separate tracker poweroutage.us.
As of 3:31:14 p.m. EST. Market Open.
At least two people were killed as four separate fires spanning thousands of acres tore through Los Angeles County Wednesday, and local firefighters said they were not equipped to mitigate blazes of such magnitude.
Some 80,000 residents across seven counties in Southern California were ordered to evacuate.
Edison International had warned Monday that nearly 300,000 customers were under consideration for public safety power shutoffs (in which utilities turn off power to mitigate the spread of wildfires) as Santa Ana winds brought gusts of up to 100 miles per hour.
While the company said such shutoffs are used “only as a last resort,” Edison International also turned off power for customers in November and December as extreme winds heightened wildfire risks.
Those outages briefly sent shares down to a much lesser degree: EIX dropped a modest 1% on Nov. 6 (the start of the November fire), before more rallying through the rest of the month, and just over 2% over the course of the early December fires.
Wednesday’s decline in shares brings the stock down 7% from its year-ago level.
Fellow utility stock Pacific Gas and Electric (PCG) stock also fell Wednesday, with shares dropping 4.6%.
PG&E last January settled a case from the California Public Utilities Commission’s Safety and Enforcement Division for $45 million for its role in starting a massive 2021 wildfire in northern California.
As of 3:31:15 p.m. EST. Market Open.
Laura Bratton is a reporter for Yahoo Finance. Follow her on Bluesky @laurabratton.bsky.social. Email her at laura.bratton@yahooinc.com.
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