PG&E shutoffs, outages affect 46,000 across Bay Area, Northern California

Pacific Gas and Electric Co. shut off power Sunday across parts of Northern California as strong, dry winds raised wildfire danger, while large outages also spread through the Bay Area during the afternoon and evening.

PG&E's outage center showed 46,664 customers affected by 549 outages as of Sunday afternoon, a total that appeared to include both planned public safety power shutoffs and unplanned outages.

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PG&E outage map: Bay Area shutoff details by address

In the Bay Area, outage alerts showed sizable service interruptions throughout the day.

A Solano County outage affecting an estimated 5,646 customers began just before 8 a.m. Large outages later appeared in Napa, Marin, Sonoma and Santa Cruz counties, including a Sonoma County outage affecting an estimated 3,140 customers shortly after 4 p.m. and a Santa Cruz County outage affecting an estimated 2,249 customers at 7:35 p.m.

PG&E said public safety power shutoffs had been planned to help prevent wildfires.

The shutoffs were visible across a broad stretch of PG&E's outage map, with clusters in the North Bay, East Bay, Sacramento Valley, Central Valley and Sierra foothills.

The event was broader than PG&E had signaled earlier in the week, when the utility listed an elevated shutoff risk in seven counties.

By Sunday, PG&E had upgraded its forecast to "PSPS Warning - shutoffs required" for parts of 15 counties: Alameda, Colusa, Contra Costa, Fresno, Glenn, Lake, Merced, Napa, San Benito, San Joaquin, Solano, Sonoma, Stanislaus, Tehama and Yolo.

PG&E's forecast kept the warning in place for Sunday and Monday.

The utility uses public safety power shutoffs during periods of strong wind, low humidity and dry vegetation to reduce the chance that energized electrical equipment could ignite a wildfire. The California Public Utilities Commission describes PSPS events as temporary shutoffs in specific areas to reduce fire risk from electric infrastructure.

The shutoffs came as the National Weather Service warned of breezy to windy conditions through Monday, especially in the North Bay, East Bay and South Bay mountains and the Santa Cruz Mountains. Elevated fire weather concerns were expected to continue across interior areas because of low humidity and strong gusts.

A wind advisory was in effect from 11 p.m. Sunday to 11 a.m. Monday for the Santa Cruz Mountains, North Bay interior mountains, eastern Santa Clara hills and East Bay hills. Forecasters expected north-to-northeast winds of 15 to 30 mph, with gusts up to 50 mph and local gusts up to 60 mph. The weather service said the winds could knock down tree limbs and cause additional power outages.

PG&E urged customers to check the utility's outage map for address-specific information because outage boundaries can shift and county-level warnings do not mean every customer in those counties will lose power.

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This story was originally published May 18, 2026 at 2:20 AM.