How are wildfires named? What’s the Lightning Complex? Answers for California fire season
As wildfires caused by lightning strikes ravage parts of Northern and Central California, the blazes are named with three-letter prefixes.
The prefixes — LNU, SCU, and CZU — are geographical locations based on Cal Fire unit codes, The SF Chronicle reported. LNU encompasses the Sonoma-Lake-Napa Unit (including Sonoma, Lake, Napa, Colusa, Solano and Yolo Counties.)
SCU designates the SCU unit (Santa Clara, Alameda, San Joaquin, Contra Costa and Stanislaus Counties) while CZU refers to parts of the San Mateo-Santa Cruz Unit (Santa Cruz and San Mateo counties in addition to San Francisco County).
A complex refers to two or more fires in the same area that are then grouped together and assigned to a Cal Fire command, according to the National Park Service.
“We only group fires like that when we have a lightning siege as such,” Brice Bennett, public information officer for Cal Fire told The SF Chronicle.
The LNU Lightning Complex has doubled in size since Wednesday, expanding to 131,000 acres, the Sacramento Bee reported. The blaze is threatening 30,000 structures, according to Cal Fire.
The SCU Lightning Complex has burned over 137,000 acres while the CZU August Lightning Complex has consumed 40,000 acres, resulting in the evacuation of around 26,000 people.
How are wildfires typically named?
Fires are usually named by the dispatcher who takes the initial report and sometimes by the first responder at the scene, The Los Angeles Times reported.
Dispatchers will name fires by finding a nearby landmark or feature, like a canyon, river or valley.
“The name helps direct us to the location,” Scott McLean, spokesperson for Cal Fire, told the publication. “We respond to about 170 fires a week throughout the state. We don’t have time to second-guess ourselves. We get a location and a name, and then we get to work.”
The Camp Fire in Butte County in 2018, the deadliest wildfire in California history, was named after Camp Creek Road, McClatchy News previously reported. The Carr Fire, which killed eight people and destroyed 1,000 houses before it was contained, got its name from Carr Powerhouse Road.
Sometimes, naming a blaze after a nearby location has cringe-worthy results.
“You could have a fire by a landfill — and they might call it the Dump Fire,” Cal Fire spokeswoman Heather Williams told The New York Times. “Sometimes the names come through and it’s like, ‘Really guys?’”
This story was originally published August 20, 2020 at 1:53 PM with the headline "How are wildfires named? What’s the Lightning Complex? Answers for California fire season."