The CZU Lightning Complex fires were
wildfire
A wildfire, forest fire, or a bushfire is an unplanned and uncontrolled fire in an area of Combustibility and flammability, combustible vegetation. Depending on the type of vegetation present, a wildfire may be more specifically identified as a ...
s that burned in
Northern California
Northern California (commonly shortened to NorCal) is a geocultural region that comprises the northern portion of the U.S. state of California, spanning the northernmost 48 of the state's List of counties in California, 58 counties. Northern Ca ...
starting in August 2020. The fire complex consisted of fires in
San Mateo and
Santa Cruz counties,
[ including fires that had previously been separately tracked as the Warnella and Waddell fires. The firefighting effort was primarily administered by the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire).][
The first fires started around 3:30 am on August 16, 2020, the result of a thunderstorm that produced close to 11,000 bolts of lightning and started hundreds of fires throughout California.][ These lightning strikes initially started fires separately known as the Warnella Fire, near ]Davenport
Davenport may refer to:
Places Australia
*Davenport, Northern Territory, a locality
*Hundred of Davenport, cadastral unit in South Australia
**Davenport, South Australia, suburb of Port Augusta
**District Council of Davenport, former local govern ...
and the Waddell Fire, near Waddell Creek, as well as three fires on what would become the northern edge of the CZU Complex fire. Two days after the fires began, a change in wind conditions caused these three northern fires to rapidly expand and merge, growing quickly to over 40,000 acres, exacerbated by conditions caused by climate change.
The fires destroyed 1,490 buildings,[ including in the communities of Boulder Creek, ]Bonny Doon
Bonny Doon is a census-designated place in Santa Cruz County, California. It is situated northwest of the Santa Cruz, California, city of Santa Cruz, considered part of the South Bay (San Francisco Bay Area), southern San Francisco Bay Area or ...
, Swanton, and along Empire Grade Road. Fires burned in both Butano and Big Basin Redwoods state parks, where a number of historic buildings were destroyed, including the visitor center at Big Basin. The fire also threatened to burn down the University of California, Santa Cruz
The University of California, Santa Cruz (UC Santa Cruz or UCSC) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Santa Cruz, California, United States. It is one of the ten campuses in the University of C ...
campus, reaching within one mile of the campus before firefighters established two fire breaks that stopped the fire, saving both the University and the city of Santa Cruz.
On September 22, Cal Fire reported that the complex, which had covered , had been fully contained.[ On December 23 Cal Fire announced that the fire was controlled, stating that the fire was fully extinguished and has no risk of reignition. However, it was later discovered that the fire was not quite completely extinguished; ]redwoods
Sequoioideae, commonly referred to as redwoods, is a subfamily of coniferous trees within the family Cupressaceae, that range in the northern hemisphere. It includes the largest and tallest trees in the world. The trees in the subfamily are a ...
continued to smolder well into 2021.
The abbreviation "CZU" refers to the Cal Fire designation for its San Mateo–Santa Cruz Unit, the administrative division for San Mateo, Santa Cruz and San Francisco
San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...
counties.
One person died in the fires, and one other was injured.
See also
* 2020 California wildfires
2020 was a record-setting year for wildfires in California. Over the course of the year, 8,648 fires burned , more than four percent of the state's roughly 100 million acres of land, making 2020 the largest wildfire season recorded in Calif ...
* August 2020 California lightning wildfires
A series of 650 wildfires ignited across Northern California in mid-August 2020, due to a siege of dry lightning from rare, massive summer thunderstorms, which were caused by an unusual combination of very hot, dry air at the surface, dry fuels ...
** LNU Lightning Complex fires
The LNU Lightning Complex fires were a large complex of wildfires that burned during the 2020_California_wildfires, 2020 California wildfire season across much of the Wine Country area of Northern California – Lake County, California, Lake, ...
** SCU Lightning Complex fires
** SQF Complex
The SQF Complex fire—also called the SQF Lightning Complex—was a wildfire complex that burned in Tulare County in Central California in 2020. Comprising the Castle and Shotgun fires, it affected Sequoia National Forest and adjacent areas. B ...
References
External links
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*
* CZU Lightning Complex damage assessment maps, by county
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{{California wildfires
Wildfires in Santa Cruz County, California
Wildfires in San Mateo County, California
2020 California wildfires