Firefighters battling massive California blazes say thunderstorms that dropped light rain gave them a little breathing room but lightning sparked several new blazes in the drought-stricken north.
Lightning strikes over Mt. St. Helena Thursday, Sept. 9, 2021 in Napa county, Calif. Northern California was hit with well over 1,000 strikes during the storm. Fast-moving thunderstorms with lightning and little rain are moving across Northern California and raising the risk of new wildfires in the drought-stricken region.
The National Weather Service said there were more than 1,100 cloud-to-ground lightning strikes in California between Thursday evening and Friday morning. Fire officials said lightning strikes ignited at least 17 fires. Up to a half-inch of rain fell on portions of the Dixie Fire, which began in mid-July and has burned through huge swaths of the northern Sierra Nevada and southern Cascades. The second-largest fire in California history has burned 1,490 square miles of land and more than 1,300 homes and other buildings. It was 59% contained.
The rain slowed down the fire but “once the sun gets on it, the wind’s blowing on it, it eventually is going to pick up again and dry off enough and it’s going to start running again,” said Tony Brownell, an operations section chief with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.
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