Rare lightning storms struck the San Francisco Bay Area and the Monterey Bay region Sunday morning, sparking at least eight vegetation fires in Santa Clara, San Mateo and Santa Cruz counties.
There’s an elevated risk of fire danger across wide swaths of California on Sunday because of the risk of lightning. Thunderstorms are also possible across Southern California.
“Wild night in the San Francisco Bay Area. This is probably the most widespread and violent summer thunderstorm event in memory for Bay Area, & it’s also one of the hottest nights in years,” tweeted Daniel Swain, climate scientist with UCLA and the National Center for Atmospheric Research.
A three-acre wildfire was reported in the area of 20730 Brush Road in the mountains south of Los Gatos in Santa Clara County. At 3:17 a.m., the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection tweeted that it was wind-driven and had threatened structures and that, with power lines down, officials were starting evacuations. Subsequent rain, however, helped to slow the fire’s spread.
Read the full story on LATimes.com.
Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland, Calif., Sunday, Aug. 16, 2020. Numerous lightning strikes early Sunday sparked brush fires throughout the region. (AP Photo/Noah Berger) 
A rare lightning storm crackles over Mitchell’s Cove in Santa Cruz, California around 3 a.m. Sunday morning August 16, 2020. (Shmuel Thaler/The Santa Cruz Sentinel via AP)
