Caitlin Cornwall News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

In mid-August, as a largely uneventful tropical storm named Fausto was starting to wind down in the Pacific Ocean southwest of Baja California, a plume of moisture it spun off had metastasized into dry thunderstorms that were rolling across northern California, more than 700 miles away. Recently flattened by a record-setting heat wave, the region was blitzed by a 72-hour “siege” of nearly 11,000 lightning strikes from the storms. Hundreds of wildfires sparked to life. As the fires tore across the parched landscape, some of them grew so large they bled into others, coalescing into one of the largest wildfires in state history the LNU Lightning Complex, which would eventually incinerate more than 360,000 acres across five counties.

United statesRussian riverNapa valleySonoma countySan diegoSan franciscoKatina connaughtonPeter seghesioVirgilio martinezDan barberCaitlin cornwallBevan wiigLos angelesPacific oceanSonoma ecology centerCommunity alliance