FIRE<br > x992<br >Late in the afternoon of July z6， I989， a dry lightning storm swept<br >through the mountains north of Boise， Idaho， and lit what seemed like<br >tile whole world on fire.<br > A dry lightning storm is a storm where the rain never reaches the<br >ground. It evaporates in midair， trailing down from swollen cumulus<br > clouds in long， graceful strands called virga. The dectrical charges<br > from a dry storm do nor uail offbefi3re they hit the ground， however;<br > they rip into the mountains like artillery. On July 26， r989， lightning<br > was hitting the upper rkiges of the Boise National Forest at the rate of<br > a hundred strikes an hour. Automatic lightning detectors at the Boise<br > Interagency Fire Center were registering， all over the western states，<br > rates up around two thousand an hour. By nightf:all i2o fires had<br > caught and held north of Boise， little one-acrc blazes that eventually<br > converged into a single unstoppable， unapproachable front known as<br > the l，owman fire.<br > For dre first three days Lowman was simply one among hundreds<br > of fires that were cooking slowly through the parched Idaho forests.<br > Around four o clock in the afternoon ofJuty zg， however， the flames<br > reached some dead timber in a place called Steep (. reek， just east of the<br > town of Lowman， and the fire changed radically. [he timber was fiom<br > a blowdown two years earlier and was so dry that when the flames<br >