LNU & CZU Lightning Complex Fires Time Lapse 8/18/2020

0:00 Hennessey Fire (LNU complex) overtakes Mt Vaca cameras
0:06 Smoke of CZU complex produces ashfall in Palo Alto
0:17 Ranch 2 Fire in San Gabriel Canyon
0:26 Rotating thunderstorm and more
2:16 Intense lightning barrage west of Elko, Nevada

Lightning complex fires around the bay area started by an unprecedented lighting siege and egged on by strong winds, a heatwave, and dry conditions spread swiftly. The Hennessey Fire damaged two radio towers with fire cameras on Mount Vaca, both of which have been repaired: www.alertwildfire.org/southeastbay/index.html?came…

Though initially separate, the Hennessey Fire grew to merge with the Gamble, Green, Markley, Spanish, and Morgan Fires to become the LNU complex and burn a total of 363,220 acres in Wine Country, the fourth-largest wildfire in the recorded history of California. After destroying 1,491 structures and causing 6 civilian deaths, it was extinguished on October 2, 2020.

The CZU August Lightning Complex Fires burned through 86,509 acres of forest in the Santa Cruz Mountains and damaged 7,567 buildings, including the visitor center of Big Basin Redwoods State Park. Older redwoods were more resistant to fire damage, but the forest floor continued to smolder for months, occasionally flaring up during wind events. Due to the rarity of events in Santa Cruz County, the fire fighting system was extremely strained, and the CZU fires cost $68 million to fight.

Although the fires led to much economic and property damage and human cost, regular fires are a natural part of healthy forests in the Western US. They help thin overgrown forests that could lead to larger, more disastrous fires, remove dead or diseased trees, clear undergrowth to allow sunlight to reach the forest floor, return nutrients to the soil, and create new homes for animals, encouraging biological diversity. Thus, methods such as prescribed fires are used to mitigate negative effects of destructive fires on humans while allowing fires to perform their environmental roles.

All 2020 fires: www.fire.ca.gov/incidents/2020
Sources:
twitter.com/NWSBayArea/status/1295927904182759425/…
www.pacificbio.org/initiatives/fire/fire_ecology.h….
www.fs.usda.gov/science-technology/fire
www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-03-16/68-mil…
solanocounty.com/depts/oes/lnu_lightning_complex_f…

Time Lapses from the ALERTWildfire network www.alertwildfire.org/ managed by the Nevada Seismological Laboratory at the University of Nevada, Reno in partnership with PG&E.