Lightning sparks brush fires; slight rain falls in LV Valley

Thursday, June 17, 2004 | 9:25 a.m.

Lightning strikes sparked wildland fires in Southern Nevada and Southern Utah Wednesday night as a series of dry thunderstorms pushed north and east of Las Vegas.

Meanwhile, isolated summer storms dropped a fraction of an inch of rain in the Las Vegas Valley and at Mount Charleston on Wednesday, but the brief showers were expected to scoot north and east of Southern Nevada today, a National Weather Service forecaster said.

Early this morning the Las Vegas Valley got a refreshing sprinkle of rain, but the Weather Service said it had not re-checked the gauges to see how much fell.

A lightning strike Wednesday near Bunkerville, about 45 miles northeast of Las Vegas, ignited a blaze in brush along the Virgin River that sent four engines from the Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service down narrow roads.

Several motorists on Interstate 15 called about the flames they could see from the highway, a fire dispatcher said.

Lightning sparked fires north of St. George, Utah, damaging electrical lines and knocking power out in the entire city, which is about 120 miles northeast of Las Vegas.

A St. George Energy Services spokesman said that repair crews were working to restore electricity after the power went out about 6:30 p.m. Wednesday. Power was restored shortly after 10 p.m.

It was not yet known this morning whether lightning played a part in a wildfire that broke out in a mountainous area near Bunkerville late Wednesday night.

Federal firefighting crews were assessing the fire in a rugged area outside the town. The fire was not threatening any people or structures, BLM spokeswoman Kirsten Cannon said.

Cannon said an early estimate of the fire's size was 10,000 acres. It wasn't clear whether the light rain would aid the firefighters' effort.

The rain was too light to be measured at at McCarran International Airport, where the National Weather Service's official rain gauge is located.

At Mount Charleston and at a gauge near Rainbow Boulevard and Flamingo Road a measurable 0.02 of an inch was recorded, meteorologist Charlie Schlott said.

Storm clouds collapsing northwest of Las Vegas whipped winds from 30 mph to 40 mph about 10:30 p.m., Schlott said. The winds began decreasing after midnight.

The drought continues, with Lake Mead still dropping about a foot a week, he said.

Sun reporter Molly Ball contributed to this story.