"The fires down in Santa Cruz County and into Alameda County and then up the coast, they were all fairly simultaneous. We're fortunate to be in the most robust mutual aid system in the country, if not the world. But it doesn't take much for the system to get stripped. There is a limit to what we can do."
"One possible reason is that those multi-ignition fires occur when there's dry lightning. When there's a system driving many lightnings, they can start fires in close-by areas."
"The study, published in the journal Science Advances, found that multi-ignition fires made up only 7% of the total number of fires between 2012 and 2023 but contributed to 31% of the burned area in the state."
In August 2020, lightning ignitions across the Diablo range and the Bay Area produced simultaneous fires that strained mutual aid firefighting resources. Multi-ignition wildfires, frequently fueled by dry lightning, represent a growing extreme-fire threat across the western U.S. Multi-ignition events comprised 7% of fires from 2012 to 2023 yet accounted for 31% of burned area in California. A model developed by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and UC Irvine demonstrates how separate ignitions can interact with atmospheric convection to create amplified fire-weather systems that accelerate spread and complicate firefighter safety and resource allocation.
Read at The Mercury News
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