3,000-Acre SoCal Fire Sparked By Rare 'Lightning Sleeper'

The lightning strike that sparked Tuesday’s east of Murrieta was a quiet sleeper that waited a few days before unleashing its fury, a Cal Fire official said today.

said a lightning strike earlier this week ignited the 3,000-acre Buck Fire that continued to Wednesday in southwest Riverside County, but it wasn't until about 1 p.m. Tuesday when heat, moisture and wind created the perfect storm for flames to unfurl.

It's not all that unusual for a lightning strike to smolder for a few days during damp weather, only to ignite when conditions grow warmer and dryer, Barley explained, noting that the phenomenon is known as a “lightning sleeper.”

But in Southern California, lightning storms are not typical.

Barley could not say for certain when the lightning strike that triggered Tuesday’s blaze actually took place, but he acknowledged that strikes this past weekend were likely culprits.

Saturday and Sunday saw unusual local weather. Oppressive heat and humidity, thunder and lightning storms, and even a few “microbursts" -- more commonly called funnel clouds or small tornadoes by laypeople -- slammed the region.

Meanwhile, Mother Nature’s rage continues. There were currently no estimates on when firefighters might gain the upper hand on the "Buck" fire, which was at 15 percent containment as of press time. The blaze broke out in a remote area of Aguanga, and has destroyed four structures and injured five people, including three firefighters.