The bulb COULD have lost its seal, became open to air, the
tungsten filament vaporizes at a point and disconnects, falls
down and presents a very low resistance across the interior
wires in the bulb base, makes a flash at the same time it's
tripping the breaker.

Replace the bulb first, try again.

On Feb 18, 8:35 pm, "lhfreak" wrote:
I bought a replacement bulb for the front porch light, and when I
turned it on, there was a loud POP and the house blacked out. There
was some smoke and sparks as well...(from the light fixture). The
circuit breaker got the lights back on...Did the new bulb somehow do
this? I haven't tried another yet.....or is there a problem in the
light fixture? (the light was working last night...the bulb blew out
tonight)