Bless our Firefighters!

More Than 840 Fires Burn Across Northern Calif.
Concerns About Unhealthy Air Rise

CBS News) ― In less than a day, an electrical storm unleashed nearly 8,000 lightning strikes that set more than 800 wildfires across Northern California - a rare example of "dry lightning" that brought little or no rain but plenty of sparks to the state's parched forests and grasslands.

The driest season in memory has turned the countryside into a tinderbox and it could be an historic fire season, reports CBS Correspondent Sandra Hughes from Chico, Calif. Record low rainfall, bone-dry brush and unseasonably high winds all coming together for a perfect firestorm.

Fire crews in California have a lot of experience fighting wildfires. But they'd never seen the countryside explode into flames the way it has over the past few days. More than 800 wildfires are burning in northern California -- an area that hasn't had a good, soaking rain in months.

"It was explosive conditions up there, real hot, the fire kept breaking on us and slopping over so we had to really work hard," said Battalion Chief Merlin Turner of the Richmond Fire Department in Northern California.

Thousands of firefighters battled the blazes Tuesday from the ground and air. No homes had been destroyed, but voluntary evacuations were in place for residents of at least 25 homes, officials said.

Firefighters who contained a fire in Napa are heading off -- without rest -- to the nearby Walker fire, Hughes reports. And while reinforcements are coming from Nevada, Oregon and Montana, firefighters are starting to show signs of fatigue.

"People are tired right now, people are starting to show the sign of wear that we wouldn't see until late in the summer," said Battalion Chief David Shew.

One of the biggest problems firefighters are facing is that there are 300 vacant positions and a shortage of fire engines at the U.S. Forest Service.

So cash-strapped California is looking anywhere it can to pump up its own firefighting budget.

The lightning storm struck California when the state was experiencing one of its driest years on record. Earlier this month, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger declared a statewide drought and directed agencies to speed up water deliveries to drought-stricken areas. Many communities are have adopted strict conservation measures.

The weekend's lighting storm combined with extremely dry conditions to spark about 840 separate blazes from the Big Sur area of Monterey County to Del Norte County on the Oregon border.

By contrast, 574 lightning-sparked fires blackened about 55,000 acres in Northern California in all of 2007.

On Tuesday, fire crews from Nevada and Oregon arrived after Schwarzenegger requested extra help. Smoke from the fires has darkened skies in the San Francisco Bay area and Central Valley, causing public health officials to issue air-quality warnings.