Wildfires
Additional fire fighting crews from around the province have arrived in the region to help with existing fires and expected lightning-caused fires. Two additional unit crews, comprising a total of 40 firefighters, are available for sustained action on larger fires. Five additional three-person initial attack crews are also standing by to respond to smaller fires and new fire starts.
Just days after putting out a 105-acre wildfire near Cedar Point and Pumpkin Hill roads in Nassau County, the state's Division of Forestry battled at least three fires over a total of about 30 acres Wednesday and Thursday. Lightning caused each of the fires, said Annaleasa Winter, a wildfire mitigation specialist for the Forestry Division.
Those come after lightning caused six fires over about 55 acres Tuesday in Clay County.
The weather system is not expected to bring enough rain to have any effect on several huge blazes that have burned for nearly a month, said Pete Munoa, a spokesman for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.
A bigger concern is thunderstorms predicted to accompany the system.
But fire officials said cooler temperatures mean lightning strikes don't pose as much of a threat as they did a month ago, when storms sparked nearly 2,100 fires that have burned almost 1 million acres.
"The weather pattern, if it holds the way it is now, we should be able to get a foothold around these fires," Munoa said.
In the rural town of Junction City, residents were under mandatory evacuation orders for a third day Sunday as flames crept across the Shasta-Trinity National Forest. The month-old fire had spread to nearly 87 square miles by Sunday and was 49 percent contained.
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©Chronicle photo by Dee Camp |
Fire erupts near Okanogan after lightning storm passes through at 7 p.m. |
A brief, fierce lightning storm touched off a fast-moving fire that is threatening structures, the Okanogan County Sheriff's Office's communications system and crops in the Cameron Lake Road area near Okanogan.
The fire began around 7 p.m. July 1 as a lightning storm moved through the valley. It brought scattered rain showers to the mid-valley area and hail to the south end of the county.
Update: Dry weather, fires, spontaneous combustion? As it turns out the Taurid meteor event was not a complete bust, more like a combustion:
1st of July 2008 - Witnesses across Southern California say they saw an object 'moving very fast across the northern sky' and falling near the San Bernardino Mountains. Officials have no firm answers on what it was.Now isn't it a "coincidence" that California became engulfed, at its peak, in 1,783 fires across the state, scorching over 527,000 acres, including one in the San Bernardino mountains. Firefighters are still battling over 300 fires. Yet, all the fires are being blamed on "unusual early-summer lightning storms".
From Hollywood Hills to the Nevada state line, people reported seeing a fireball streaking across the sky and falling near the San Bernardino Mountains this morning. But explanations of the mysterious object were scarce.
San Bernardino County Fire Dispatch reported receiving dozens of calls related to what was described as fireball moving at high speed and falling in northwest sky around 10:40 a.m.
"We got quite a few reports. It started with a gentlemen in the Lake Arrowhead reporting a fireball in the Meadow Bay area and then we started getting calls from all over," said San Bernardino County dispatch supervisor Tom Barnes. "Fire crews in Barstow and on I-15 near Stateline came up on the radio and reported an object in the sky moving very fast across the northern sky and described it as yellowish green in color with streaks of debris. It looked like it burned up before it hit the ground."
New mandatory evacuation notices were issued Wednesday morning for an additional 10-mile stretch along Highway 1, bringing the total length of the evacuated area to about 25 miles of the coast, emergency officials said.
"The fire is just a big raging animal right now," said Darby Marshall, spokesman for the Monterey County Office of Emergency Services.
Firefighters are battling more than 1,100 wildfires, mostly ignited by lightning, that have scorched 680 square miles and destroyed 60 homes and other buildings across Northern California since June 20, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.
No new major fires had broken out Sunday as fire crews inched closer to getting some of the largest blazes surrounded, according to the state Office of Emergency Services.
But a "red flag warning" - meaning the most extreme fire danger - was still in effect for Northern California until 5 a.m. Monday. And the coming days and months are expected to bring little relief.
Forecasters predicted more thunderstorms and dry lightning through the weekend, similar to the ones that ignited hundreds of fires a week ago. Meanwhile, a U.S. Forest Service report said the weather would get even drier and hotter as fire season headed toward its traditional peak in late July and August.