Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton on Tuesday is seeking monetary damages and consumer restitution in a lawsuit against a national utility company, alleging it failed to care for its aging Texas infrastructure that caused the state’s largest wildfire.
Two decayed utility poles owned by Xcel Energy sparked the Smokehouse Creek fire in 2024 that burned through more than 1 million acres in West Texas, killing three people and thousands of livestock and causing more than $1 billion in damages. The lawsuit claims Xcel had marked one of the poles that fell as defective weeks before it started the fire, but that the Minnesota-based company chose not to replace it.
“Xcel ignored the warning and chose to place marginal profits — amounting to only a few thousand dollars — above the safety and wellbeing of Texans, the State’s property, and the natural resources enjoyed by all People,” the lawsuit read.
