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ABSTRACT:

Lightning discharges have great impact on forest ecology. There are many indications that lightning is main cause for wildfires. Dry lightning or rain free lightning strikes are prominent natural source for wildfires. In remote areas dry lightning can escalate into uncontrollable events. Dry lightning often ignites wildfires in dry vegetation areas. It has been studied by several researchers that dry lightning strikes are most destructive and costly wildfires. The present work is the review study of impact of dry lightning on wildfires. The influences of variables such as environment, weather, fuel dryness and geographical factors and their effect on dry lightning are also aimed to study. Dry lightning has been shown to be the cause of huge wildfires, and it is well known that wildfires are a growing threat as climate continues to warm. So, an understanding of dry lightning is essential to fire management.

KEYWORDS: Dry lightning, Wildfires, Environment.

INTRODUCTION:

Dry lightning occurrence is of critical importance to land management agencies since this type is most likely to cause wild land fires. Dry lightning strikes often ignite wildfires in dry vegetation, especially in remote areas. These strikes can quickly grow out of control under favorable conditions, causing damage and burning large areas. It has been observed, that dry lightning and dry thunderstorms cause the majority of wildfires in western U.S.

Dry lightning is cloud to ground lightning without any accompanied rainfall nearby. Dry thunderstorm are thunder and lightning that occur without bringing rain to the ground, it occurs when most or all of its precipitation evaporates before reaching the ground. Lightning strikes that occur with minimal rainfall (about with less than 2.5mm of rainfall) are known as dry lightning. In normal thunderstorm, lightning strikes, while rainfalls from the storm clouds usually accompanied by the sound of thunder. When the lightning hits the ground, it may cause a spark of flame, but the rain which comes down along the lightning puts the fire out before it has chance to spread. In dry storm rain is produced but it never reaches the ground. That's called Virga. These dry storms tend to form extremely high, which mean that the rain may pass through a huge zone of warm air, this dry warm air cause the rain...

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