10 Straight Days of Lightning Activity Sparks Nearly 90 Fires Across Northern California

Tuesday, June 2, 2009

10 Straight Days of Lightning Activity Sparks Nearly 90 Fires Across Northern California

News Release

US Forest Service

Shasta-Trinity National Forest

REDDING, Calif. (June 1, 2009) – In the past week, thunderstorm activity produced over 5,000 lightning strikes in Northern California resulting in nearly 90 fires in the northern region. "On Sunday alone, roughly 1200 lightning strikes occurred in the area," according to Basil Newmerzhycky, a Forest Service meteorologist in Redding. Fire crews quickly responded to the lightning-caused blazes, holding the total acres burned for all the fires to less than 45 acres.

Since last Thursday, lightning activity ignited 17 fires on the Shasta-Trinity National Forest. The majority of these fires were successfully kept to less than half an acre in size. “Engine, hand, smokejumper and helirappell crews responded to the fires. Lookouts and aerial reconnaissance aircraft have been deployed to search for fires. Identifying fires as early as possible provides the best opportunity to safely suppress the fires. Our intent is to hit the fires hard and keep them small without injury to firefighters or others,” stated Shasta-Trinity Fire Chief Arlen Cravens. "As of late Monday, 13 of the fires on the Forest have been extinguished or are controlled and in patrol status - the remaining four fires are actively being suppressed by our firefighters," Cravens continued.

Forest Service analysts noted today that while the number of lightning strikes recorded this past week is very high, the fuel conditions are different than they were for last June's Lightning Event. This lightning is coming with much more precipitation and the fuels are not quite ready to burn actively. On June 20, 2008 in Northern California, a 33 hour-long lightning event produced over 5,100 lightning strikes resulting over 1,000 fires in the area.

Forest Service meteorologists expect a 30-50% chance of showers and wet thunderstorms through much of the remaining week. As firefighters assess their successes over the past week, the anticipated wet conditions in the coming days may provide a welcome break to this early introduction of the 2009 Northern California fire season.

Fire updates will be provided as new information becomes available.

General fire information can be found at: http://www.fs.fed.us/r5/shastatrinity

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Tuesday, June 2, 2009