Power restored after ‘safety related’ outage affects thousands in Boise
Thousands of Idaho Power customers in Downtown Boise were affected by an outage Monday morning, according to the utility’s outage map.
One report showed nearly 3,000 customers near Kathryn Albertson Park were without power. Idaho Power’s website listed the cause of the outage as “safety related.”
Spokesperson Brad Bowlin told the Idaho Statesman in an email that the outage was caused at around 9:40 a.m. by a squirrel that got into a substation, causing a fault. Bowlin said the substation is designed to protect the equipment in that event.
“That equipment acts just like a breaker at your house,” he said. “It is designed to prevent further damage to the system and enable our crews to safely check the equipment and restore power.”
Power was restored in the area shortly before 11 a.m.
A second outage in Downtown Boise also appeared on the map shortly after 10 a.m. and was listed as resolved by 10:20. Bowlin told the Statesman that alert was created by crews working in the area, leading to an erroneous message uploading to the system. He said no customers in that area lost power.
This story was originally published October 20, 2025 at 10:55 AM.
