‘Smoking’ electrical box triggers outage for more than 500 homes in Roseville

Update: Power was restored to the area around 5:30 p.m.

Original story:

A smoking electricity box in a residential section of southeast Roseville has triggered an outage for roughly 500 homes Friday afternoon.

The outage was reported just before 1 p.m. for a tract of homes in the Johnson Ranch section of the city near the intersection of East Roseville Parkway and Sierra College Boulevard.

According to a Roseville fire official, an electrical box was seen smoking at 12:49 p.m. near the intersection of East Roseville Parkway and Old Auburn Road. Fire crews responded and “kept the area secure before turning the scene over to Roseville Electric at 1:12.”

A lineman in the field told dispatchers when he reached the scene that the box was “not on fire” but “leaking oil,” according to dispatch audio reviewed by The Sacramento Bee.

The city’s outage map reported 530 homes were without electricity as a result. Metadata on the outage map reports that electricity could be restored as early as 9:22 p.m.

Roseville residents are served by the city’s own utility system, along with other municipal services. Other neighborhoods near the outage — including Granite Bay, which is serviced by PG&E, and rural Orangevale, serviced by the Sacramento Municipal Utility District — remained on the grid.

This story was originally published February 20, 2026 at 2:45 PM.