In a single day Lightning Strikes in North Bay Preserve Residents, Firefighters on Edge – CBS San Francisco
SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF) – Thursday night there were multiple reports of rain, thunder and lightning in the North Bay as an unstable weather system moved across the Bay Area amid a red flag warning keeping firefighters on guard.
The National Weather Service Bay Area Twitter account posted about thunder and lightning around 9:20 p.m.
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Numerous reports of thunder and lightning strikes in North Bay while a number of showers sweep across the area. The peak phase of instability and thunderstorm potential will continue during the night. #RedFlagWarning pic.twitter.com/FQqWHotlTG
– NWS Bay Area (@NWSBayArea) September 10, 2021
The Santa Rosa fire department also reported some rain showers on Thursday evening.
Yes, it is rain. Hopefully that’s all we see during this red flag alert. 🤞🏻 for no dry lighting. @NWSBayArea pic.twitter.com/a040k5PuAL
– Santa Rosa Fire Department (@SantaRosaFire) September 10, 2021
The system is expected to bring cool temperatures to the Bay Area this weekend, but firefighters are concerned that lightning strikes could recreate last year’s devastating complex fires.
The National Weather Service issued a red flag warning Thursday for the mountains, hills and valleys of North Bay and East Bay, which runs from 5 p.m. Thursday to 11 a.m. Friday. The main concern is lightning strikes that could trigger additional forest fires in extremely dry vegetation. The warning was an upgrade from a previous Fire Weather Watch.
Wind and lightning strikes are a recipe for disaster, especially with the dry fuels in this area.
Earl Small sat on the porch of his new Santa Rosa home, looking for lightning and signs of fire.
“After waiting four years to get back to our house, it’s nerve-wracking,” said Small.
The Santa Rosa Fire Department has staffed its stations, although the weather shouldn’t be as volatile as the thunderstorms that started the LNU Lightning Complex fire last year.
“Given the critical dryness of the fuels and the irregular winds that can be expected on many fronts, every blow will start a fire. It just depends on how big it gets or how small we can keep it, ”said Paul Lowenthal from the Santa Rosa fire department.
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Santa Rosa is working closely with other departments in the North Bay to respond quickly to fires and to alert residents of evacuations if necessary. It’s an experience Earl Small hopes never to go through again.
“If you lose everything, you have nothing,” he said.
After years of financial and emotional struggles, Small got his house back, but not his home.
“To live in a house for twenty-two years is a home. If we go back to a structure that is a house, people who haven’t been through it and lost everything will never understand, ”said Small.
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More than 600 forest fires were ignited across Northern California as of mid-August 2020 by rare summer thunderstorms that combined burned more than 2.5 million acres as the fires extended into January. At least 23 people died and more than 3,500 buildings were destroyed.
In the Bay Area, the largest fires in August 2020 were the SCU Lightning Complex, the LNU Lightning Complex and the CZU Lightning Complex, which burned nearly 900,000 hectares by mid-September. Further north, the August Complex in counties Mendocino, Humboldt, Trinity, Tehama, Glenn, Lake, and Colusa burned more than a million acres and is considered the largest forest fire in California history.
According to the weather service, in September there are often interactions between tropical humidity and pre-season troughs in the late season, which lead to lightning fires. In September 2009, a lightning strike triggered about 30 small fires in the Bay Area. There were also lightning events in mid-September in 2017 and 2019.
Unusual this year, however, is the extreme drought and the risk of lightning after days with very hot and dry weather, said the weather service.
“We’re full right now,” says Chelsea Burkett of Cal Fire’s Santa Clara Unit. “We have a lot of resources right now for various incidents in the state of California. We are where we can be. “
Additional equipment is now on standby at Morgan Hill Headquarters, and other preparations are being made all the way over the hills of the East Bay where the fire departments will be keeping additional crews ready.
Cal Fire says it works with NOAA to track the weather, and when a lightning strike hits the ground, they know where it happened, often meters from the landing. It is more difficult to know whether this strike started a fire or not.
“All we can do in our unit is be prepared,” says Burkett. “And that’s why we have a plan to be prepared and send resources accordingly.”
At 10 a.m. on Thursday, there was subtropical moisture over the region with isolated showers moving over the north bay and several heavier showers over the coastal waters. No lightning was detected locally until this morning, but there was a lightning band west of the Channel Islands in Southern California.
The passing system will result in a gradual cooling trend into late week, along with the likely return of a deepening ocean layer, with temperatures close to seasonal averages from Friday through the coming weekend, with night / morning low clouds more prevalent, said the weather service.
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Andrea Nakano from KPIX 5 contributed to this report
