Fearing strong winds and heightened wildfire danger, Pacific Gas and Electric Co. expanded its public safety power shutoffs to six additional counties as of Thursday morning, with shutoffs affecting more than 4,400 customers on the last day of Red Flag Warning conditions across much of the Sacramento Valley.
The deliberate blackouts, commonly known as Public Safety Power Shutoff, or PSPS, events, are affecting homes and businesses in eight counties north and west of Sacramento County. The shutoffs are PG&E’s second PSPS activation of 2026. The outages began Wednesday and initially affected about 1,800 customers in Colusa and Glenn counties.
PG&E uses PSPS events to cut electricity in targeted areas when extreme weather — like the Red Flag Warning conditions forecast for the Sacramento Valley on Wednesday and Thursday — threatens to turn power lines into wildfire ignition sources.
Where are the outages?
As of noon Thursday, the following counties were affected by the shutoffs, according to data provided to the Governor’s Office of Emergency Services:
Tehama County, 1,198 customersGlenn County, 1,150 customersNapa County, 958 customersColusa County, 662 customersSutter County, 318 customersSonoma County, 150 customersLake County, 88 customersYolo County, 40 customers
Cal OES said a total of 4,443 customers were affected Thursday by PSPS events.
When is power expected to return?
On Monday, PG&E warned that about 5,000 customers in parts of the eight aforementioned counties could lose power at some point during the red flag conditions. The company said outages would likely extend into Thursday.
Here is when homes and businesses affected by the PSPS events can expect to have their power restored Thursday, according to Cal OES data:
Sonoma County, 12:30 p.m.Lake, Napa, Sutter and Yolo counties, 4 p.m.Tehama County, 8 p.m.Glenn and Colusa counties, 11 p.m.What is a red flag warning?
National Weather Service forecasters based in Sacramento issued the red flag warning due to high winds, high temperatures and low humidity — conditions that they said could lead to fire spreading rapidly.
The Weather Service forecast sustained winds of 15 to 25 mph with gusts up to 40 mph during the warning period, from 11 a.m. Wednesday to 5 p.m. Thursday.
Firefighters across Sacramento and the Valley responded to multiple small fires before and since the warning went into effect.
The Putah Fire in Yolo County burned 860 acres west of Winters. The fire began as a controlled burn before escaping Monday morning and continuing to burn into the red flag conditions. Anticipating the conditions, firefighters worked aggressively Tuesday to increase containment, and keep additional resources on hand during the warning days.
The fire was 60% contained as of Thursday morning, according to Cal Fire.
Several grass fires also sparked near Sacramento during the red flag conditions Wednesday, including four grass fires in northeast Woodland and a 2-acre grass fire that damaged four outbuildings in Sacramento’s Vineyard neighborhood.
A suspect was arrested in connection with the Woodland fires, while the Sacramento fire remained under investigation, officials said. Woodland was under the Red Flag Warning, while Sacramento was not. Officials said firefighting conditions in Sacramento were still difficult.
“Simple actions such as mowing dry grass, welding, grinding, or dragging trailer chains can quickly ignite vegetation and lead to fast-moving fires,” Sacramento Metropolitan Fire District spokesperson Capt. Mark Nunez said in a news release about the grass fire. “As temperatures rise, please remain vigilant and do your part to help prevent wildfires in our community.”
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Sean Campbell is a 2025 and 2026 summer reporting intern covering sports and news at The Sacramento Bee. Campbell is studying journalism at USC and serves as a news editor at the student-run Daily Trojan. He previously covered sports for the Davis Enterprise.