Lightning sparks 800-plus fires in California
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - June 24, 2008 One of the fires started by weekend thunderstorms had already
blackened more than 10,000 acres - nearly 16 square miles - in a
rural area of Lake County, about 120 miles north of San Francisco.
No homes had been destroyed, but officials said voluntary
evacuations were in place for residents of 36 homes.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said he was told late Sunday evening
that the state had 520 fires, and he found it "quite shocking"
that by Monday morning the number had risen above 700.
Moments later, a top state fire official standing at
Schwarzenegger's side offered a grim update. The figure was
actually 842 fires, said Del Walters, assistant regional chief of
the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. All but
a couple were in the northern part of the state.
"This is an unprecedented lightning storm in California, that
it lasted as long as it did, 5,000 to 6,000 lightning strikes,"
Walters said. "We are finding fires all the time."
A blaze that started in Napa County moved into Solano County as
it burned over more than 6 square miles. It was 60 percent
contained, said Kevin Colburn, a spokesman for the California
Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.
No homes have been destroyed, and voluntary evacuations about 40
miles southwest of Sacramento have been lifted.
A blaze that had charred nearly 6 square miles in the
Shasta-Trinity National Forest about 160 miles north of Sacramento
was a threat to about 1,200 homes and several youth camps.
Assistance, mostly firefighting aircraft, had arrived from
Nevada and Oregon in response to weekend requests. Schwarzenegger
said he had enlisted the help "because you can never prepare for
500 or 700 or 800 fires all at the same time."
Part of the reason for the swelling number of wildfires was that
local and state officials were still counting after fierce
thunderstorms Friday night touched off the blazes.
"We didn't get real lucky with this lightning storm," Walters
said. "It wasn't predicted - which often happens with these storms
that come in off the Pacific, there's no history of the weather as
it approaches the shore - and so we got hammered."
Mendocino County alone had 110 fires, with just 17 contained.
In Monterey County, a fire near the coast south of Big Sur was
only 3 percent contained. It has consumed about 11 square miles
acres since it was first reported Monday.
Also in Monterey County, a wildfire west of King City in the
Ventana Wilderness of the Los Padres National Forest was 66 percent
contained. It has burned about 90 square miles.
The Ventana Wilderness fire, which started before the weekend
lightning storms, led to an emergency airlift Sunday of eight
endangered California condors. Coast Guard helicopters carried the
seven juveniles and one adult bird from a wildlife center to the
Monterey Airport.
In New Mexico, crews dropped 11,500 incendiary balls to ignite
unburned vegetation and halt a blaze that has charred more than
49,000 acres, largely on grazing allotments on federal land.
Lightning started that fire Tuesday in the Lincoln National
Forest about 20 miles southwest of Hope. It was not threatening any
structures.
"The ranchers have already moved a lot of the cattle that were
out there," U.S. Forest Service fire information officer Deanna
Younger said. The grazing areas "will be the main loss," she
said.