Spring Break
Lightening sparks hundreds of fires in Calif.
The Associated Press
Issue date: 6/25/08 Section: News
From San Francisco to Los Angeles, cities have only seen a tiny fraction of the rainfall they normally receive at this point in a typical year. In the Central Valley, the cities of Sacramento, Modesto, Stockton and Red Bluff have recorded their driest March-to-May periods since at least the 19th century, according to the weather service.
"A combination of lightning and very dry fuels will spark fires," said Mark Strobin, a weather service meteorologist in Monterey. "It doesn't take much nowadays especially with how dry it is."
Even before the lightning struck, California had already seen an unusually large number of destructive wildfires with about 140 square miles burned, compared to about 66 square miles during the same period last year, according to state officials. The fire season typically does not peak until late summer or early fall.
"This doesn't bode well for the fire season," said Ken Clark, a meteorologist in Southern California with AccuWeather.com. "We're not even into the meat of the fire season at this point, and the brush is extremely dry. It's not going to get any better, it's going to get worse."
The weekend's lightning storm combined with extremely dry conditions to spark about 840 separate blazes from the Big Sur area of Monterey County to Del Norte County on the Oregon border.
By contrast, 574 lightning-sparked fires blackened about 86 square miles in Northern California in all of 2007.
One of the state's worst wildfire years occurred in 2001, when more than 2,000 lightning-caused blazes burned about 289 square miles, according to the National Interagency Fire Center.
Areas hit the hardest by the weekend thunderstorm include Mendocino County, where 131 fires have burned more than 20 square miles and threatened about 500 homes; Butte County, where 25 fires have burned about 6 square miles and threatened 400 homes; and the Shasta-Trinity Forest, where more than 150 fires have burned about 12 square miles and threatened 200 homes.
The biggest fire burning in California started more than two weeks ago in a remote region of the Los Padres National Forest in southern Monterey County. That 91-square-mile blaze was about two-third contained Tuesday.
The weather service has said more dry thunderstorms could strike Northern California later this week.
Several wildfires also were burning in New Mexico, where about 150 children were evacuated from a youth camp southeast of Albuquerque on Tuesday as a blaze in the Manzano Mountains closed in.
"A combination of lightning and very dry fuels will spark fires," said Mark Strobin, a weather service meteorologist in Monterey. "It doesn't take much nowadays especially with how dry it is."
Even before the lightning struck, California had already seen an unusually large number of destructive wildfires with about 140 square miles burned, compared to about 66 square miles during the same period last year, according to state officials. The fire season typically does not peak until late summer or early fall.
"This doesn't bode well for the fire season," said Ken Clark, a meteorologist in Southern California with AccuWeather.com. "We're not even into the meat of the fire season at this point, and the brush is extremely dry. It's not going to get any better, it's going to get worse."
The weekend's lightning storm combined with extremely dry conditions to spark about 840 separate blazes from the Big Sur area of Monterey County to Del Norte County on the Oregon border.
By contrast, 574 lightning-sparked fires blackened about 86 square miles in Northern California in all of 2007.
One of the state's worst wildfire years occurred in 2001, when more than 2,000 lightning-caused blazes burned about 289 square miles, according to the National Interagency Fire Center.
Areas hit the hardest by the weekend thunderstorm include Mendocino County, where 131 fires have burned more than 20 square miles and threatened about 500 homes; Butte County, where 25 fires have burned about 6 square miles and threatened 400 homes; and the Shasta-Trinity Forest, where more than 150 fires have burned about 12 square miles and threatened 200 homes.
The biggest fire burning in California started more than two weeks ago in a remote region of the Los Padres National Forest in southern Monterey County. That 91-square-mile blaze was about two-third contained Tuesday.
The weather service has said more dry thunderstorms could strike Northern California later this week.
Several wildfires also were burning in New Mexico, where about 150 children were evacuated from a youth camp southeast of Albuquerque on Tuesday as a blaze in the Manzano Mountains closed in.
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