Dozens of lightning-striking fires burned in California. According to new research, warm climates may bring more

With dozens of wildfires burning throughout California as a massive amount of dry lightning bursts, a new study warns that warmer planets could bring more lightning-like wildfires to the West over the next few decades.

“These events really can turn the fire season on a dime,” said study author John Abatzoglou, a professor of climate science at UC Merced.

A lightning storm threw thousands of bolts in the state from the early hours of Tuesday to early Wednesday, California Fire Battalion Chief David Acuña told Calsatters on Wednesday. During the same period, forty-five new fires were lit within Cal Fire’s jurisdiction. Dry lightning strikes are rarely (if any) rainfall nearby.

“We can’t collectively say they’re all lightning fires, but we can say there are a lot of lightning attacks and a lot of fires,” Akunia said.

Many of them burned in the foothills of the Sierra, including the TCU September Lightning Group in Tuolumne, Stanislaus and Calaveras counties. The fires have burned nearly 14,000 acres and have been forced to evacuate, destroying buildings and destroying the historic gold rush town of China Camp.

How many lightning strikes hit the ground Tuesday and Wednesday. But Chris Vagasky, a lightning data expert at the National Lightning Safety Commission, calculated nearly 11,000 poles of electricity in California’s ground in 31 hours. Federal map shows dry lightning bolts up and down in the center of California, from Fresno to the Oregon border.

Although people have inspired the vast majority of wildfires, the lightning strikes have caused some of the largest and longest lightning-like fires in California – more than a third of the region in recent decades, according to federal data analysis by Abatzoglou.

Lightning began some of the largest wildfires in California’s history, including the August 2020 complex that killed a firefighter and became the first major fire to burn more than a million acres of the country.

These wildcards, lightning fires, may be the “main driving force” of how much the West burns, which is why scientists are trying to understand its patterns, Abatzoglou said.

His team’s research was published last week in the Journal The future of the earth, The report said that from 2030 to 2060, some Western states may see up to 12 days of lightning attacks each year.

Using machine learning, researchers found that Eastern Oregon, Washington, Idaho and Western Montana will see some of the biggest growth. But parts of Northeast California and eastern Sierra can also see an increase.

More results are found in parts of the southwest. But even there, as climate change becomes hotter, drier conditions, researchers found that lightning is increasingly likely to hit when barbecue land is more susceptible to fires.

“When it comes to fire risk, you get this very dangerous situation where your lighting creates dry vegetation,” said the lead author of the study. “You get ignited, but there is no downpour to put out the flames so that the fire can grow.”

New research from UC Merced strongly predicts that climate change may stimulate more lightning strikes.

But homeless people who did not participate in the study said it improved previous efforts by focusing on the risks of lightning fires across different geographical locations, weather patterns and vegetation.

“It’s not always the amount of lightning,” Vagasky said. “It’s a lightning stroke hitting the wrong place and starting to catch fire at the wrong time.”

“We have to be ready”

In the right conditions, in the right place, a lightning fire can burn and remove fuel like a prescription, said Zeke Lunder, Pyro Geaughtther and director of Wildfire Education Blog and YouTube channel.

The challenge is that there are dozens of thunder and lightning sparks.

“We’re really good at firing,” Rand said. “But when we have a hundred, some of them are going to escape.”

Five years ago, Cal Fire’s Acuña was joining the lightning-style hill fire near Coalinga when another lightning storm fell.

“Lightning was shaking around us, we were so tired, we were like, ‘Okay, there’s nowhere to hide,'” He said. “There is no cave. You can’t stand under a tree. We just have to be as flat as possible and wait for it to pass.”

He remembers it felt like hours, lying there waiting for the storm to pass. “I know, every cell I have will be charged,” he said.