Lightning Strikes Trees, Grass, Power Poles, and Houses; Leaving a Trail of Small Fires Along the Way

Lightning lit up the skies in the Central Valley on Wednesday night, in turn, leaving many people associated with weather and fire very busy.

National Weather Service meteorologist David Spector, who works out of Hanford, said, "[There were] a lot of lightning, several hundred strikes were reported in the central and south San Joaquin Valley overnight during that period."

Spector said he and the Hanford NWS team were swamped Wednesday night, particularly around 10pm to 1am. It was the kind of lightning storm Spector said he hasn’t seen in years.

"That’s a discharge of electricity which occurs in the clouds. And it can be in cloud, cloud to cloud, and cloud to ground," said Spector.

Lightning that hits the ground that can start fires. Fresno County Cal Fire said 16 fires were ignited Wednesday night due to the lightning.

Captain Ryan Michaels said, "Most of which were relatively small. Some were isolated to just little spots because of the amount of rain and precipitation, where as others had very little rain and were able to get established."

Michaels said the fires consumed trees, dry grass, and power poles. One home in Chowchilla burned overnight. Neighbors report hearing fireworks and lightning before the fire started. And lightning hit a power pole in a mobile home complex in Visalia just before 1am Thursday morning. The Visalia Fire Department said the live wires fell onto a unit causing a small fire.

PG&E said during Wednesday night’s thunderstorm, more than three-thousand customers in Fresno experienced power outages. They said there are hundreds in the Central Valley still without power on Thursday.