Weekend forecasts see chance of dry lightning that could spark blazes in parched Bay Area.
Weekend weather forecasts predicting possible thunderstorms over the Bay Area fueled concerns Friday about dry lightning strikes sparking new wildfires across much of droughtstricken Northern California.
The National Weather Service issued a fire weather watch for a large portion of the Bay Area, including regions near Cloverdale and Santa Rosa in the North Bay, Concord and Livermore in the East Bay and farther south near Monterey and Big Sur.
Surging, unstable air masses could arrive over the Bay Area by Sunday afternoon, bringing with them the chance of dry lightning. The fire weather watch will take effect at 5 p.m. Sunday and last through 11 a.m. Monday.
Punishing drought conditions have dried up grasslands, forests and other vegetation that fuels wildfires.
The weather service issued an advisory Friday saying that “given how dry the fuels are, any lightning strikes will be problematic.”
But despite the elevated wildfire risks, weather patterns in the coming days will not be nearly as alarming as the conditions last
year that gave rise to a historically destructive fire season, one largely brought on largely by innumerable lightning strikes. The confluence of unstable tropical air, high winds and high temperatures that occurred in August isn’t expected to converge this weekend.
Still, lightning strikes have already been blamed this year for sparking several Northern California wildfires, including the Beckwourth Complex fire, the largest in the state.
The Beckwourth Complex was burning across nearly 105,000 acres — about 164 square miles — in Plumas County. Firefighters on Friday had contained 68% of the perimeter around the fire and reported making progress in an area west of the town of Doyle adjacent to Highway 395, where the fire had previously escaped containment lines.
Cal Fire officials also suspect lightning caused the Dixie Fire, which was burning near the footprint of the deadly 2018 Camp Fire in Butte County. The blaze was nearly 8,000 acres in size and 7% contained Friday afternoon.
Firefighters were struggling to contain the blaze because it is burning in steep and inaccessible terrain. Winds pushed the fire farther north into Tobin Ridge.