Aveson School of Leaders suffered extensive damage in the fire, according to the district. The damage ranged from all-out destruction of schools to the loss of buildings on other campuses.

“The destruction of multiple schools and educational facilities has created an immense burden on students, families, and the entire educational community,” John Fiske, an attorney representing the district, said in a statement. “This lawsuit seeks fair compensation to recover the taxpayer resources and district property lost as a result of this devastating fire.”

SCE officials on Friday acknowledged the lawsuit, but didn’t go much further in a brief statement.

“The Eaton fire has been heartbreaking for the Altadena community,” SCE spokesperson Diane Castro said Friday afternoon. “We are reviewing this lawsuit and will respond through the legal process.”

PUSD joins the cities of Pasadena and Sierra Madre as well as Los Angeles County as public entities that have sued the public utility.

On Monday, the attorneys representing more than 100 plaintiffs appeared at a hearing in Los Angeles Superior Court to come up with a plan of how to manage the number of lawsuits filed against SCE.

According to the district, the PUSD lawsuit includes SCE’s own regulatory filings that acknowledge electrical system anomalies that coincide with the fire’s ignition time and location.

The district’s Board of Education announced at a previous meeting that it had voted in closed session to initiate litigation against Southern California Edison in connection with the damage caused by the Eaton fire.

The fire, and now the lawsuit, come at a pivotal time for the district.

PUSD has been grappling with financial woes, even before the fire, that led to the board approving cuts to more than 150 positions last month.

Officials warned that more cuts will be coming unless something changes with the district’s financial position. The driver of the problems has been declining enrollment, increasing costs and the expiration of one-time COVID-19 relief funds.

Superintendent Elizabeth Blanco presented a by-the-numbers impact of the fire on PUSD to the Altadena Town Council this week.

Blanco said two-thirds of PUSD students evacuated due to the fire. To date, 987 families and 120 employees have reported losing their home in the fire.

The district had to change its schedule for bond-funded renovations due to the fire and order replacement devices and instructional materials lost in the blaze.

PUSD’s complaint includes claims for inverse condemnation, negligence, trespass, nuisance, premises liability and violations of public utilities and health and safety codes. It seeks damages for direct fire damage and subsequent costs of managing postfire impacts.

Meanwhile, various entities are investigating the cause of the fire, including SCE. Probes have focused on SCE transmission towers in the foothills above Altadena.

The array of other lawsuits, which on Monday were consolidated into one main case, point to eyewitness accounts, photographs and videos depicting arcing from Edison power lines and flames burning at the bottom of transmission towers.

The suits contend that sparks from the lines or current from an exposed grounding wire made contact with mountain brush. They also criticize SCE for not deenergizing all the power lines in Eaton Canyon after the utility was warned days ahead that powerful winds were coming.

Inspectors for the first time climbed giant transmission towers in Eaton Canyon on Thursday looking for evidence that could confirm whether the utility’s equipment ignited the catastrophic wildfire on Jan. 7, driven by extreme winds.

The tower climbers from the Rosemead-based company collected forensic evidence that ultimately could determine its liability for the Eaton fire, which destroyed thousands of structures and killed 17 people.

The inspections represent the first time since the Eaton fire ignited that SCE and investigators for the victims started taking a close-up look at the equipment that more than 130 lawsuits allege sparked the deadly blaze.

PUSD’s lawsuit will join those claims against SCE.

Edison International CEO Pedro Pizarro, whose company owns SCE, told investors in the utility’s fourth-quarter earnings call last month that even if investigators find that SCE’s Altadena transmission lines ignited the fire, “we are confident that SCE would make a good-faith showing that its conduct, with respect to its transmission facilities in the Eaton Canyon area, was consistent with the actions of a reasonable utility,” Pizarro said. “That is the standard by which a utility is judged.”