On Wednesday, lightning, much of it without rain, began moving across the northwestern portion of the United States. It began in Washington and Oregon and by late afternoon moved into Idaho and northwest Wyoming.
At least 9,400 strikes were recorded in Oregon in a 24-hour period, and as of Thursday afternoon 180 fires have been detected in the state. More lightning is forecast for eastern Oregon over the next three or four days. Western South Dakota is expected to receive some dry lightning Thursday evening, causing a Red Flag Warning to be issued. The forecast for northeastern Wyoming and western South Dakota calls for erratic winds with gust up to 50 mph in the vicinity of thunderstorms.
Missoula has a Red Flag Warning in effect until midnight for thunderstorms with little rain. Billings has also issued a Red Flag Warning for wet and dry thunderstorms with erratic winds up to 45 mph. Pendleton, Oregon has a Red Flag Warning in effect for this afternoon and evening for “abundant lighting” with less than 0.10″ of precipitation.
It will be interesting to see if this develops into a large-scale lightning fire bust, like the ones in 1987 and 2008. If so, you can expect the National Preparedness Level to rise much higher than what it is now, two. And with only 14 large air tankers under exclusive use contracts, compared to 44 in 2002, there would be many, many unfilled orders for air tankers.
Can you please send a link of the lightning tracker you r showing? i would like to work with it. Thanks, Rick Taft. aka, Ricks fire pics.
Even the current situation isn’t manageable with the current federal air tanker fleet.
As someone said earlier on twitter, one agency has adopted a “GYODP Doctrine” when it comes to federal wildfires. They’ve implemented that doctrine twice in the last week, most recently today.