Xcel Energy Says its Facilities Were Involved in Smokehouse Creek Fire in Texas

(Reuters) – Electric utility Xcel Energy said on Thursday its facilities were involved in an ignition of the Smokehouse Creek fire in Texas.

But the company denied “claims that it acted negligently in maintaining and operating its infrastructure”.

The Smokehouse Creek Fire has killed at least two people and grown into the largest wildfire in state history since it started later last month in the Texas Panhandle.

A Texas homeowner whose house was destroyed by the wildfire sued Xcel last Friday, claiming that the power pole owned by the company’s subsidiary, Southwestern Public Service Co, was in bad physical shape before it fell and caused the fire.

Xcel also faces a lawsuit in Colorado, where the costliest wildfire on record in the state, the Marshall Fire, had killed two people and destroyed nearly 1,100 homes in December 2021.

Reporting by Seher Dareen in Bengaluru; Editing by Shilpi Majumdar

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