Pacific Gas and Electric is preparing a possible public safety power shutoff for about 7,800 customers across small portions of 10 California counties, starting the afternoon of Wednesday, July 15, as a high wind event moves into its service area. It would be the utility's third such shutoff of 2026.
PG&E is tracking wind forecast to reach the North Bay, South Bay, East Bay, Salinas Valley, San Joaquin Valley and Central Coast at around 1 p.m. on July 15. The utility said the shutoff responds to a combination of high winds, low relative humidity and dry fuel loads, the conditions that raise wildfire risk on live power lines. A Public Safety Power Shutoff cuts electricity to sections of the grid before that risk turns into a fire.
Who is affected
PG&E released a county-by-county breakdown of the roughly 7,800 customers at risk:
| County | Customers affected |
|---|---|
| Alameda | 75 |
| Contra Costa | 70 |
| Fresno | 17 |
| Marin | 2,017 |
| Merced | 77 |
| Monterey | 3,083 |
| San Benito | 154 |
| Santa Barbara | 287 |
| San Joaquin | 33 |
| San Luis Obispo | 1,978 |
Monterey and Marin account for the largest share of the total.
PG&E's response so far
PG&E activated its Emergency Operations Center and began sending advance notices Tuesday, July 14, to customers in the targeted areas. The utility said the scope could still change: shutoffs may be delayed or canceled based on real-time weather, and how long any outage lasts will depend on conditions in each area plus damage found once patrols and inspections begin. Under a California Public Utilities Commission requirement, PG&E must finish notifying customers before it releases shutoff details to the media.
A shrinking footprint
PG&E has cut the size of these outages sharply since they became common. Public Safety Power Shutoffs affected more than 2 million customers in 2019; by 2025 that fell to about 18,000. PG&E credits energy storage systems that keep critical services running during an outage, new technology that narrows the number of customers affected, automated notifications, expanded Community Resource Centers, and undergrounding and other system upgrades.
PG&E points to a past event as evidence the tool works. A Technosylva fire-spread simulation found that without the May 17-18, 2026 shutoff, up to 270,000 acres could have burned. Patrols of the de-energized lines before PG&E restored power after that event turned up three incidents of wind-related damage and one hazard.
PG&E, a subsidiary of PG&E Corporation (NYSE:PCG), serves more than 16 million people across 70,000 square miles of Northern and Central California.
