A Northern California fire broke out in the Klamath National Forest, about 14 miles south of the Oregon border, sending out a massive pyrocumulus cloud and triggering a flurry of evacuations
Thunderstorms passed over the region Friday night and may have exacerbated the blaze."We had 100 lightning strikes in western Siskiyou County last night," said Brad Schaaf, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service office in Medford, Ore.
"It looks like the fire definitely came first, before the thunderstorms," Schaaf said."It looks like there was a wind gust from the fire that aided the thunderstorm development. The first lightning strikes happened after 7 p.m." More lightning is the forecast on Saturday and the weather has a Red Flag Warning in effect due to the severe weather conditions.
Schaaf said the fire put out a 39,000-foot-tall pyrocumulus cloud at 11:30 p.m."It's unusual for a fire to put out a fire cloud of that size late at night because usually fires stabilize after sunset," he said. Pyrocumulus clouds, also known as fire clouds, form when air heats up and moves upward, pushing smoke, ash and vapor up with it. They are a sign that fire activity on the ground is increasing.
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