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The Record Searchlight newspaper in Redding, California has an update about the lightning-caused fires in the Shasta-Trinity National Forest. Here is an excerpt:

By Constance Dillon, Rob Rogers
Sunday, June 22, 2008

Widespread thunderstorms rolling through the north state late Friday night and Saturday ignited scores of fires ranging in size from less than an acre to hundreds of acres in lightning-torn Trinity County.

The largest concentration of fires is known as the Lime Complex near Limedyke Mountain in the Hayfork Ranger District of the Shasta-Trinity National Forest, forest spokesman Mike Odle said. The Lime Complex in Trinity County includes 30 fires burning more than 1,000 acres, Odle said.

Another large complex of fires is called the Iron Complex in the Big Bar Ranger District near Junction City off Highway 299. Multiple fires are burning 350 acres in the Iron Complex, Odle said.

Some 3,000 lightning strikes spawned 75 fires in the Shasta-Trinity National Forest from Friday night to Saturday afternoon, and fire officials were bracing for more thunderstorms Saturday night, Odle said. Forest Service officials still were assessing the fires’ acreage Saturday afternoon.

Smoke first was reported Friday afternoon in the Hyampom Road area of Trinity County. By 3 a.m. Saturday, Forest Service crews started dispatching fire crews, engines, bulldozers and water tenders.

“We were told to expect 50 to 100 fires,” said Angelo Cattaneo, owner-operator of Cattaneo Trucking, as she stood in front of a row of water trucks and engines outside the Hayfork Ranger District on Saturday.

More than 20 smokejumpers were sent to fires in the more remote regions.

Fire crew leaders radioing the Hayfork Ranger District office with reports of small fires Saturday were interrupted by frantic reports of new flare-ups. “This whole place is on fire,” one Forest Service worker’s voice said over the fire scanner. Another voice cut in: “This place is too tight for my guys to rappel in.”

From the reports I have seen, there are at least 300-400 fires that were started by the lightning that moved across the northern part of California from west to east during the last 24 hours. As this is written, lightning is still occurring in northeastern California.

Most of the fires are very small, their growth muted for a while by the overcast skies that brought the thunderstorms. But as the skies clear, smoke from a few large ones northwest of Redding and west of Ukiah is becoming visible in satellite photos. Only a small percentage of the fires are staffed and many new ones are being discovered every hour.

This situation is going to become dire unless the northern half of the state receives a great deal of rain in the next day or two. The weather forecast for the next several days at Redding shows temps in the low to mid 90’s, moderate winds, minimum RH’s in the high teens, and very little chance of rain.

It is starting to look like it could become another summer like the “Siege of 1987” when lightning in late August started 1,600 fires in northern California and southern Oregon that burned 650,000 acres. Some of the fires burned into October.

From the New York Times, September 2, 1987:

9,000 ARE FIGHTING FIRES IN CALIFORNIA

Firefighters called in from around the nation deployed in the forests of Northern California today, battling hundreds of lightning-ignited fires that have blackened 68,000 acres and forced people to move out of some mountain communities.

Three rural communities in western Oregon were threatened by fires surging through tinder-dry timber, while firefighters in Idaho slowly gained ground against a blaze that menaced an affluent neighborhood of Pocatello.

In California, nearly 9,000 firefighters battled major blazes in the Stanislaus, Klamath, and Shasta-Trinity national forests and nearly 300 smaller fires, said Mike Milosch of the United States Forest Service in Sacramento.

Mr. Milosch said firefighters had controlled about 700 other blazes ignited by nearly 5,000 lightning strikes since Saturday. The lightning is occurring in near-record heat that has left forests extremely dry. In the Air and on the Ground

Fire officials said there had not been as many lightning-caused fires in California since the summer of 1977 when a fire in the Los Padres National Forest blackened nearly 200,000 acres.

The Federal and state firefighters now battling the blazes employed at least 48 air tankers, 296 fire engines, 31 helicopters and scores of bulldozers.

Remember when we used to be able to deploy 48 air tankers to one state?

Dozens of new fires started by lightning are burning in northwest California. Dry lightning came through the Six Rivers and Shasta-Trinity National Forests yesterday afternoon and started at least 40 fires on the Shasta-Trinity and half a dozen on the Six Rivers. A Type 3 team is managing a group of them, called the Lime Complex, south of Hyampon . Others are located between Clear Creek and Somes Bar. Smoke jumpers from Redding are working on many of the fires, and additional jumpers are being flown in from other jump bases to help.

The weather forecast for the Hyampom area this afternoon calls for 82 degrees, relative humidity at 23%, and winds 7 mph out of the southwest. (UPDATE @ 1242 MT: lightning is occurring now and more is expected during the day. A red flag warning has been issued.)

The map below shows some of the heat in red detected by satellites last night; click on it to see a larger version.
UPDATE @ 1018 MT, 6/21
An informal count of the vegetation fires that have started since Friday afternoon, based on fires reported by dispatch (some of these are complexes, consisting of multiple fires):

Six Rivers NF: 23 fires
Shasta-Trinity: 38 fires

UPDATE @ 1202 mt, 6/21
Below is a map showing the fires that have been reported just on the Shasta-Trinity NF in the last 24 hours. Those folks are going to be busy for a long time, unless the weather is very nice to them. A couple of the fires may be assists to other agencies, also dealing with new lightning fires.

Here is a map showing the fires that have been reported on the Six Rivers NF in the last 24 hours.

On May 29 we reported on the members of the Flathead Hot Shots that were struck by lightning while working on a prescribed fire. The Hungry Horse news interviewed them:

By CHRIS PETERSON/Hungry Horse News
Heather McEvoy remembers a flash of light off her shoulder. She remembers screaming for a minute. Somebody get this chainsaw off me. Somebody get my shoes off. Please get my shoes off. My feet. My feet are on fire.

Getting up to help her was co-worker Beau Morin. He, too, got hit by the flash light. He, too, got knocked to the ground. But it wasn’t as bad. He was sort of paralyzed on his left side. Body parts were tingling and weird feeling. But he had to help McEvoy. She couldn’t feel anything from the waist down. Except for that fire in her feet. Somebody put that fire out. Get this chainsaw off my chest.

All the while hail is pounding down on top of them. And there’s more lightning and more thunder in the skies. This is not a good day in May. May 29. McEvoy and Morin are members of the Flathead Hot Shot crew — an elite group of firefighters trained to work in the woods no matter what the conditions might be.

The crew was working the line of a prescribed burn that had been set the day before. Doing mop-up work. Morin was with firefighter Beau Richardson. McEvoy was teamed up with Ichiro Stewart.

They were on the line when thunderstorms started to rumble in. At first, the idea was just to hunker down, wait out the rain. But then it started to hail. So they decided to head to the “buggies” — Forest Service speak for the rigs that they ride in from fire to fire. They look like vans, only on steroids. The two groups met about a quarter mile from the buggies in a meadowy area. Stewart and Richardson were about 15 feet in front of McEvoy and Morin. Then the lightning struck. “I just had bright light on my shoulder,” McEvoy recalled during an interview with the team last week. She figured she was dead. “I thought those guys are going to have to do CPR on me.”

Stewart is an emergency medical technician. He heard the boom, turned around and saw burning debris falling from a tree. He went to McEvoy’s aid.

Morin’s assessment was more blunt. “It shocked me pretty good,” he said. But still he got up and despite the pain in his body, began helping McEvoy, getting the gear off her chest, helping her as best as he could. McEvoy would have to be carried out, even though she was starting to regain feeling in her lower extremities. Stewart radioed for two ambulances, and then carried her out.

THE TEAM PULLED together, like they’re trained to do. They credit their experience and training toward what could have been a terrible experience into a well-run rescue. Stewart was worried about hypothermia with McEvoy and it was clear Morin was hurt as well. “Our response was rapid,” Stewart recalled.

The radio for help went up through the chain of command. Ambulances were en route. ALERT was in the air. Bert Smith is the squad leader for the Hot Shots. “We operate in a high stress environment,” he noted. “But (this group) is easy to manage when you’re surrounded by leaders.”

Combined, they have years of experience fighting fires in awful conditions throughout the U.S. McEvoy, of Whitefish, has been a Flathead Hot Shot for three years, Morin of Kalispell nine years; Stewart also has several years as does Richardson. They all said Morin went above and beyond the call of duty, rushing to McEvoy’s side when he was injured himself.

He shrugs it off. “For some reason, I wasn’t too worried about it,” he said. In a little less than a half hour, the team was out of the woods and McEvoy and Morin were en route to the hospital. McEvoy says she has no long-term ill effects. She has some purple discoloration on her foot and was going back to work. Morin said he gets confused once in awhile. “But I think that’s normal,” he says with a smile.

Photo courtesy of Hungry Horse News

I don’t know if the graphic designs on the new Toshiba Qosmio X-300 notebook computer are supposed to look like flames, but it’s one of the more interesting looking computers I’ve ever seen. It has a huge 17″ screen and is aimed at gamers. Toshiba has not announced when it will be available.