Lightening caused fires in So CA (Thursday evening 7/15/10)

When I came home on Thursday night at what was around 6:30 PM PDT, a friend had sent me link to an online scanner out of Hemet CA (courtesy of Radio Reference), so I was listening to the scanner while several fires caused by lightening strikes in southern CA were burning. This included listening to communications between air attack and tankers. It was interesting and I listened some more yesterday.

The fires that I heard mentioned by name were the Cactus, Skinner, and Saddle Fires.

For those who are interested, the Riverside County Fire Department incident page also has a link to a page showing a map and any photos (only the cactus incident had a photo, of a helo): Cactus map and photo, Skinner map, Saddle map.

Bill Gabbert of Wildfire Today writes that the MAFFS II were used for the first time at the Skinner Fire, go here to his article.

For some brief stats of these fires go here.

Note: The Riverside County Fire Department works in cooperation with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. As I understand it, Ryan Air Attack Base (aka Hemet), is within the organizational structure of the Riverside County Fire Department.