A lightning barrage puts the western U.S. on fire

Note:  My weekly online weather discussion will come out at 9 AM Friday.  And I am working on starting a weekly weather podcast.  On this podcast I won't be as constrained as I was on KNKX, where certain topics (e.g., climate) were discouraged by the management.
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During the last few days, hundreds of fires have been ignited by an extraordinarily unusual barrage of thousands of lightning strikes over the western U.S. Major fires are burning all over California and dense smoke has spread across the region (see below).  The city of Vacaville is being engulfed in flames and air quality is rapidly degrading.

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