Fire Danger Eases in Lightning Storm

The last of about 100 wildfires touched off by a fierce electrical storm that swept through northeastern California were either extinguished or contained Sunday, including an 80-acre blaze that threatened the town of Quincy, U.S. forestry officials said.

About 500 lightning strikes were reported in Plumas and Lassen counties during Saturday’s freak storm, which rattled the skies with thunder but dropped only an occasional shower on the predominantly thick, dry vegetation. Occasional lightning strikes continued Sunday, though authorities said no fires resulted.

Still, California’s fire problems paled in comparison with the massive blazes reported raging in the northwest; 1,522 lightning strikes were recorded in Oregon alone late Saturday.

Dan Merritt, a fire information officer with the Interagency Fire Center in Susanville, Calif., said there were no reports of injuries or damaged structures, but the lightning that split the sky from 1:50 a.m. to 5:30 a.m. Saturday was a bit unnerving.

“We were lucky because the storms last winter created a lot of fuel,” Merritt said, referring to the vegetation that has since thickened in the Plumas and Lassen national forests. “It’s been very warm and dry here lately.

‘Pretty Impressive’

“The lightning was pretty impressive,” he said. “It was bouncing from cloud to cloud and really lighting up the sky.”

Most of the 56 fires reported in Lassen County consumed less than an acre, Merritt said, igniting “nothing more than a tree and maybe a little bit of brush.” About 200 firefighters were called out to squelch the fires.

An additional 38 fires were reported in Plumas County, including the blaze east of Quincy--a mountain community of 5,000 residents 150 miles northeast of San Francisco--and a 75-acre fire near Greenville, about 15 miles further north.

The Quincy fire, which threatened several buildings early Saturday, was fully contained Sunday after scorching about 80 acres, said Mike Vineyard, fire information officer for the Plumas National Forest.

The blaze near Greenville was posing some problems Sunday because it was spreading through a steep, nearly inaccessible canyon, Vineyard said, but no structures were threatened.

Merritt said the storm created the most intense display of lightning he has seen in the area in almost 10 years.

Frankie Shaw, a specialist with the National Weather Service, said the storm was created by a high-pressure system over northern Mexico that pushed moisture through the San Joaquin Valley into Northern California and eastern Nevada.

Meanwhile, about 17,000 firefighters were on duty tangling with fires burning uncontained over more than 100,000 acres of ranges and forests in Idaho and Oregon. “It’s probably the worst fire season we’ve had since 1910,” said Ray Naddy, spokesman for the federal-state firefighting command center in Salem, Ore.

Weather officials said lightning storms, without rain, are expected through Tuesday across the region.