Lightning bust in Northern California

Dozens of new fires started by lightning are burning in northwest California. Dry lightning came through the Six Rivers and Shasta-Trinity National Forests yesterday afternoon and started at least 40 fires on the Shasta-Trinity and half a dozen on the Six Rivers. A Type 3 team is managing a group of them, called the Lime Complex, south of Hyampon . Others are located between Clear Creek and Somes Bar. Smoke jumpers from Redding are working on many of the fires, and additional jumpers are being flown in from other jump bases to help.

The weather forecast for the Hyampom area this afternoon calls for 82 degrees, relative humidity at 23%, and winds 7 mph out of the southwest. (UPDATE @ 1242 MT: lightning is occurring now and more is expected during the day. A red flag warning has been issued.)

The map below shows some of the heat in red detected by satellites last night; click on it to see a larger version.
UPDATE @ 1018 MT, 6/21
An informal count of the vegetation fires that have started since Friday afternoon, based on fires reported by dispatch (some of these are complexes, consisting of multiple fires):

Six Rivers NF: 23 fires
Shasta-Trinity: 38 fires

UPDATE @ 1202 mt, 6/21
Below is a map showing the fires that have been reported just on the Shasta-Trinity NF in the last 24 hours. Those folks are going to be busy for a long time, unless the weather is very nice to them. A couple of the fires may be assists to other agencies, also dealing with new lightning fires.



Here is a map showing the fires that have been reported on the Six Rivers NF in the last 24 hours.