On the Role of Continuing Currents in Lightning-Induced Fire Ignition

Francisco J. Pérez-Invernón; Jose V. Moris; Francisco J. Gordillo-Vázquez; Martin Füllekrug; Gianni Boris Pezzatti; Marco Conedera; Jeff Lapierre; Heidi Huntrieser

doi:10.1029/2023JD038891

On the Role of Continuing Currents in Lightning-Induced Fire Ignition

Francisco J. Pérez-Invernón, Jose V. Moris, Francisco J. Gordillo-Vázquez, Martin Füllekrug, Gianni Boris Pezzatti, Marco Conedera, Jeff Lapierre, Heidi Huntrieser

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

6 Citations (SciVal)

Abstract

Lightning flashes are an important source of wildfires worldwide, contributing to the emission of trace gases to the atmosphere. Based on experiments and field observations, continuing currents in lightning have since a long time been proposed to play a significant role in the ignition of wildfires. However, simultaneous detections of optical and radio signals from fire-igniting lightning confirming the role of continuing currents in igniting wildfires are rare. In this work, we first analyze the optical signal of the lightning-ignited wildfires reported by the Geostationary Lightning Mapper over the Contiguous United States (CONUS) during the summer of 2018, and we then analyze the optical and the Extremely Low Frequency signal of a confirmed fire-igniting lightning flash in the Swiss Alps. Despite data uncertainties, we found that the probability of ignition of a lightning flash with Continuing Current (CC) lasting more than 10 ms is higher than that of cloud-to-ground lightning in CONUS. Finally, we confirm the existence of a long CC (lasting about 400 ms) associated with a long-lasting optical signal (lasting between 2 and 4 s) of a video-recorded fire-igniting lightning flash.

Original language	English
Article number	e2023JD038891
Journal	Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres
Volume	128
Issue number	21
Early online date	27 Oct 2023
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1029/2023JD038891
Publication status	Published - 16 Nov 2023

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
The authors would like to thank Noah Michael Berckum, who recorded the video of the lightning‐induced wildfires in the Valais. In addition, the authors thank NOAA for providing GLM lightning data, Earth Networks and Nowcast GmbH for providing lightning measurements and the National Interagency Fire Center for providing lightning‐ignited wildfire data. FJPI acknowledges the sponsorship provided by the Federal Ministry for Education and Research of Germany through the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, the sponsorship provided by Junta de Andalucía under Grant POSTDOC‐21‐0005. The project that gave rise to these results received the support of a fellowship from “la Caixa” Foundation (ID 100010434). The fellowship code is LCF/BQ/PI22/11910026 (FJPI). JVM acknowledges the support from a postdoctoral fellowship funded by the Government of Asturias (Spain) through FICYT (AYUD/2021/58534). The work of MF is was sponsored by the Royal Society (UK) Grant NMG/R1/180252 and the Natural Environment Research Council (UK) under Grants NE/L012669/1 and NE/H024921/1. Additionally, this work was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation, under projects PID2019‐109269RB‐C43 (F.J.P.I. and F.J.G.V) and PID2022‐136348NB‐C31 (F.J.P.I. and F.J.G.V) funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 and “ERDF A way of making Europe.” FJPI and FJGV acknowledge financial support from the State Agency for Research of the Spanish MCIU through the “Center of Excellence Severo Ochoa” from the Grant CEX2021‐001131‐S funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033.

Funding

The authors would like to thank Noah Michael Berckum, who recorded the video of the lightning‐induced wildfires in the Valais. In addition, the authors thank NOAA for providing GLM lightning data, Earth Networks and Nowcast GmbH for providing lightning measurements and the National Interagency Fire Center for providing lightning‐ignited wildfire data. FJPI acknowledges the sponsorship provided by the Federal Ministry for Education and Research of Germany through the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, the sponsorship provided by Junta de Andalucía under Grant POSTDOC‐21‐0005. The project that gave rise to these results received the support of a fellowship from “la Caixa” Foundation (ID 100010434). The fellowship code is LCF/BQ/PI22/11910026 (FJPI). JVM acknowledges the support from a postdoctoral fellowship funded by the Government of Asturias (Spain) through FICYT (AYUD/2021/58534). The work of MF is was sponsored by the Royal Society (UK) Grant NMG/R1/180252 and the Natural Environment Research Council (UK) under Grants NE/L012669/1 and NE/H024921/1. Additionally, this work was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation, under projects PID2019‐109269RB‐C43 (F.J.P.I. and F.J.G.V) and PID2022‐136348NB‐C31 (F.J.P.I. and F.J.G.V) funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 and “ERDF A way of making Europe.” FJPI and FJGV acknowledge financial support from the State Agency for Research of the Spanish MCIU through the “Center of Excellence Severo Ochoa” from the Grant CEX2021‐001131‐S funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033. The authors would like to thank Noah Michael Berckum, who recorded the video of the lightning-induced wildfires in the Valais. In addition, the authors thank NOAA for providing GLM lightning data, Earth Networks and Nowcast GmbH for providing lightning measurements and the National Interagency Fire Center for providing lightning-ignited wildfire data. FJPI acknowledges the sponsorship provided by the Federal Ministry for Education and Research of Germany through the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, the sponsorship provided by Junta de Andalucía under Grant POSTDOC-21-0005. The project that gave rise to these results received the support of a fellowship from “la Caixa” Foundation (ID 100010434). The fellowship code is LCF/BQ/PI22/11910026 (FJPI). JVM acknowledges the support from a postdoctoral fellowship funded by the Government of Asturias (Spain) through FICYT (AYUD/2021/58534). The work of MF is was sponsored by the Royal Society (UK) Grant NMG/R1/180252 and the Natural Environment Research Council (UK) under Grants NE/L012669/1 and NE/H024921/1. Additionally, this work was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation, under projects PID2019-109269RB-C43 (F.J.P.I. and F.J.G.V) and PID2022-136348NB-C31 (F.J.P.I. and F.J.G.V) funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 and “ERDF A way of making Europe.” FJPI and FJGV acknowledge financial support from the State Agency for Research of the Spanish MCIU through the “Center of Excellence Severo Ochoa” from the Grant CEX2021-001131-S funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033.

Keywords

continuing current
lightning
lightning-ignited fire
lightning-ignition efficiency
remote sensing
wildfires

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Geophysics
Atmospheric Science
Space and Planetary Science
Earth and Planetary Sciences (miscellaneous)

Access to Document

10.1029/2023JD038891Licence: CC BY

Cite this

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title = "On the Role of Continuing Currents in Lightning-Induced Fire Ignition",

abstract = "Lightning flashes are an important source of wildfires worldwide, contributing to the emission of trace gases to the atmosphere. Based on experiments and field observations, continuing currents in lightning have since a long time been proposed to play a significant role in the ignition of wildfires. However, simultaneous detections of optical and radio signals from fire-igniting lightning confirming the role of continuing currents in igniting wildfires are rare. In this work, we first analyze the optical signal of the lightning-ignited wildfires reported by the Geostationary Lightning Mapper over the Contiguous United States (CONUS) during the summer of 2018, and we then analyze the optical and the Extremely Low Frequency signal of a confirmed fire-igniting lightning flash in the Swiss Alps. Despite data uncertainties, we found that the probability of ignition of a lightning flash with Continuing Current (CC) lasting more than 10 ms is higher than that of cloud-to-ground lightning in CONUS. Finally, we confirm the existence of a long CC (lasting about 400 ms) associated with a long-lasting optical signal (lasting between 2 and 4 s) of a video-recorded fire-igniting lightning flash.",

keywords = "continuing current, lightning, lightning-ignited fire, lightning-ignition efficiency, remote sensing, wildfires",

author = "P{\'e}rez-Invern{\'o}n, {Francisco J.} and Moris, {Jose V.} and Gordillo-V{\'a}zquez, {Francisco J.} and Martin F{\"u}llekrug and Pezzatti, {Gianni Boris} and Marco Conedera and Jeff Lapierre and Heidi Huntrieser",

note = "Funding Information: The authors would like to thank Noah Michael Berckum, who recorded the video of the lightning‐induced wildfires in the Valais. In addition, the authors thank NOAA for providing GLM lightning data, Earth Networks and Nowcast GmbH for providing lightning measurements and the National Interagency Fire Center for providing lightning‐ignited wildfire data. FJPI acknowledges the sponsorship provided by the Federal Ministry for Education and Research of Germany through the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, the sponsorship provided by Junta de Andaluc{\'i}a under Grant POSTDOC‐21‐0005. The project that gave rise to these results received the support of a fellowship from “la Caixa” Foundation (ID 100010434). The fellowship code is LCF/BQ/PI22/11910026 (FJPI). JVM acknowledges the support from a postdoctoral fellowship funded by the Government of Asturias (Spain) through FICYT (AYUD/2021/58534). The work of MF is was sponsored by the Royal Society (UK) Grant NMG/R1/180252 and the Natural Environment Research Council (UK) under Grants NE/L012669/1 and NE/H024921/1. Additionally, this work was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation, under projects PID2019‐109269RB‐C43 (F.J.P.I. and F.J.G.V) and PID2022‐136348NB‐C31 (F.J.P.I. and F.J.G.V) funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 and “ERDF A way of making Europe.” FJPI and FJGV acknowledge financial support from the State Agency for Research of the Spanish MCIU through the “Center of Excellence Severo Ochoa” from the Grant CEX2021‐001131‐S funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033. ",

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AU - Pérez-Invernón, Francisco J.

AU - Moris, Jose V.

AU - Gordillo-Vázquez, Francisco J.

AU - Füllekrug, Martin

AU - Pezzatti, Gianni Boris

AU - Conedera, Marco

AU - Lapierre, Jeff

AU - Huntrieser, Heidi

N1 - Funding Information: The authors would like to thank Noah Michael Berckum, who recorded the video of the lightning‐induced wildfires in the Valais. In addition, the authors thank NOAA for providing GLM lightning data, Earth Networks and Nowcast GmbH for providing lightning measurements and the National Interagency Fire Center for providing lightning‐ignited wildfire data. FJPI acknowledges the sponsorship provided by the Federal Ministry for Education and Research of Germany through the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, the sponsorship provided by Junta de Andalucía under Grant POSTDOC‐21‐0005. The project that gave rise to these results received the support of a fellowship from “la Caixa” Foundation (ID 100010434). The fellowship code is LCF/BQ/PI22/11910026 (FJPI). JVM acknowledges the support from a postdoctoral fellowship funded by the Government of Asturias (Spain) through FICYT (AYUD/2021/58534). The work of MF is was sponsored by the Royal Society (UK) Grant NMG/R1/180252 and the Natural Environment Research Council (UK) under Grants NE/L012669/1 and NE/H024921/1. Additionally, this work was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation, under projects PID2019‐109269RB‐C43 (F.J.P.I. and F.J.G.V) and PID2022‐136348NB‐C31 (F.J.P.I. and F.J.G.V) funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 and “ERDF A way of making Europe.” FJPI and FJGV acknowledge financial support from the State Agency for Research of the Spanish MCIU through the “Center of Excellence Severo Ochoa” from the Grant CEX2021‐001131‐S funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033.

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N2 - Lightning flashes are an important source of wildfires worldwide, contributing to the emission of trace gases to the atmosphere. Based on experiments and field observations, continuing currents in lightning have since a long time been proposed to play a significant role in the ignition of wildfires. However, simultaneous detections of optical and radio signals from fire-igniting lightning confirming the role of continuing currents in igniting wildfires are rare. In this work, we first analyze the optical signal of the lightning-ignited wildfires reported by the Geostationary Lightning Mapper over the Contiguous United States (CONUS) during the summer of 2018, and we then analyze the optical and the Extremely Low Frequency signal of a confirmed fire-igniting lightning flash in the Swiss Alps. Despite data uncertainties, we found that the probability of ignition of a lightning flash with Continuing Current (CC) lasting more than 10 ms is higher than that of cloud-to-ground lightning in CONUS. Finally, we confirm the existence of a long CC (lasting about 400 ms) associated with a long-lasting optical signal (lasting between 2 and 4 s) of a video-recorded fire-igniting lightning flash.

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KW - lightning-ignition efficiency

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On the Role of Continuing Currents in Lightning-Induced Fire Ignition

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Funding

Keywords

ASJC Scopus subject areas

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Radio Tomography for Atmospheric Science

Cite this

On the Role of Continuing Currents in Lightning-Induced Fire Ignition

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Funding

Keywords

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Access to Document

Other files and links

Fingerprint

Projects

Radio Tomography for Atmospheric Science

Cite this