Smokejumpers deployed. My heroes.
Boom! Thunder roared repeatedly early this morning, jerking me awake.
"Oh, no!" I thought, listening to the thunderstorm. "Wildfires. Here we go."
There were 520 reported lightning strikes over the last 12 hours in Central Washington, according to the U.S. Forest Service.
Now I see smoke to the north. I used to love lightning storms. Not anymore.
Over the past decade, lightning started massive wildfires. Smoke triggers my asthma. Longer, more destructive fire seasons are part of climate change in the West.
Here's a (early) map of the lightning strikes in North Central Washington where I live.
10
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8 comments
Feel free to reply to any comment by clicking the "Reply" button.Last night, we had another powerful thunderstorm with multiple lightning strikes. Sigh.
LiterateHiker
Level 9
July 24, 2019
0
Already? I spent 5 1/2 weeks in Northern California last year because of the fires, but that was after hurricane season was almost over. We don’t ever need them, and definitely not yet. My daughter has asthma issues because of those. She’s in Oakland and they were not very close there
BudFrank
Level 8
July 23, 2019
1
@BudFranks
North Central Washington now gets dry lightning storms in July. The result: lightning-started wildfires in remote areas.
Longer, more destructive wildfire seasons are part of climate change in the West.
@LiterateHiker True. That’s what I am learning. Last year’s rains were late. They didn’t come in NOCAL until after the Camp Fire was out. That puts them in late November. No rain since April there. That’s a long time.
Fire is such an integral part of the ecosystem of the West, and try as we might it will never be controlled. I know of two fires burning in the Bitterroot Mountains, South of Missoula right now.
In 1910 fires burned over 40,000 square miles of Montana and Idaho forests - street lights in Minneapolis came on at noon, the haze was so bad.
This song chokes me up any time I hear it. I’m sure it was inspired by Norman McClean’s book - Of Young Men and Fire, which recounts the Mann Gulch Fire, North of Helena, MT in 1949. It was the first disaster encountered by smoke jumpers in the forest Service - 13 of the 15 sent to fight the fire were killed. It was also the first known use of a back fire and resulted in the fire science lab in Missoula, Montana.
James Keelahagn
Cold Missouri Waters
It’s kind of countryish - don’t hate it for that
Haemish1
Level 8
July 23, 2019
1
The nation’s East Coast gets a constant bad rep for it’s ‘humidity.’ Into my 5th summer here, ‘it’s there.’ But, you can work with & around it. But guess what? No massive yearly forest fires!
A native O, that’s all we’d hear about - every summer. A couple years ago … it sounded like (the described) Armageddon back home … even Multnomah Falls burned.
Over East, hardwood forests (and lots of them!), producing tremendous amounts of oxygen … along with a ‘natural off-gassing’ that creates a blue haze (thus, the blue ridge mountains) ...just don’t burn.. Tics, yes - Forest fires, no.
I’ve mentioned ..if ever returning to the PNW, it’d be to the East side of the Cascades. But with this reminder ...probably not 
Varn
Level 8
July 23, 2019
2
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