Oregon Public Broadcasting

Wildland fire managers are keeping an eye on Oregon and Washington following a second lightning storm that moved through the area Monday night.  Pete Springer reports.

More than 3000 lightning strikes were recorded in Oregon and Washington Monday night. 

That's on the heels of another lightning storm Sunday night that started a number of small fires mostly east of the Cascades. 

Jeri Mills is with the Northwest Interagency Coordination Center.  She says fire managers are using maps of lightning strikes, aerial reconnaissance, and ground crews to find fires before they get big.

Jeri Mills: “Lightning strikes don’t always turn into a fire right away.  Sometimes they can smolder for a little while and then -- you know like they can be down inside a tree or anything and then -- a couple of days later all the sudden ‘boom’ -- the tree kind of explodes and catches on fire and you have a forest fire or a spot fire.”

Mills says with one recent fire on the Mt. Hood National Forest, there was so much snow the fire couldn’t spread from the tree to the ground. 

Crews are also working to contain two grass fires in eastern Oregon and another one in eastern Washington.