A burning home on the outskirts of Vacaville, California, on Wednesday. Nearly 11,000 lightning strikes were documented during a 72-hour stretch this week in the heaviest spate of thunderstorms to hit California in over a decade, igniting 367 individual fires. The last time California experienced dry lightning storms of such devastating proportions was in 2008, said CalFire spokesman Scott Maclean. Fanned by "red-flag" high winds, the fires are racing through vegetation parched by a record-breaking heat wave that began on Friday. The largest group of fires, called the SCU Lightning Complex, had scorched at least 34,000ha some 32km east of Palo Alto, while a third cluster, the CZU August Lightning Complex, grew to more than 4000ha and forced evacuations about 20km south of Palo Alto.

Source: Otago Daily Times August 20, 2020 04:07 UTC