Dane Gibson
Northern News Services

NNSL (Aug 30/99) - Lightning kills 10 people in Canada every year.

Countless others are hit, severely burned, but live to tell the tale. It is also the main cause of forest fires.

Part of the Delta region is on fire right now, thanks to the super-charged phenomenon that also caused a forest fire which led to the evacuation of Edzo last week.

Tetlit Gwich'in elder Neil Colin said he's witnessed the force of lightning first-hand.

"Back in the 1940s and '50s, there was strong lightning. There's less now. Life and everything is changing. Less lightning means less rain. It's been a very dry summer and the water is as low as I've ever seen," Colin said from his home in Fort McPherson.

"There's less lightning, but it still comes. When I'm on the land I see the lightning, but in the summer light it's hard to tell where it is. There have been times where I've seen it hit the ground so hard that it lit up the earth."

Environment Canada's Warning Preparedness meteorologist Dennis Dudley said lightning is the number one weather phenomenon killer in Canada. That doesn't surprise Colin, but he said he doesn't know of anyone getting struck up here.

"I heard that it can happen, but I've never heard of any people in the North getting hit by lightning because there's so few people," Colin said.

"But I've seen a lot of trees up the Peel River that were split right in half. It was lightning that did that. I've also heard that animals get hit."

Dudley said there is a national network of sensors set up that records lightning anywhere in Canada at the exact moment it strikes.

He said the system works through sensors that record electro-magnetic energy. When lightning hits the ground, it emits a pulse.

"It's like dropping a stone in a calm pond. The electro-magnetic pulse acts like a ripple on the water so even if our sensor is 50 kilometres away, it will pick it up," Dudley said.

"The information travels almost instantly from the sensor to a satellite, then down to a computer screen in the weather office."

He said the information is used by aviators, forest fire centres and the public. Severe thunder storm warnings are issued through information taken from the lightning detection system.

"The forestry people really want to know where lightning strikes," Dudley said.

"We know when a storm is moving into a dangerous area and we know where a potential forest fire situation will develop."

He said an average lightning flash has enough energy in it to light a 100-watt lightbulb for three months. Also, the air around a lighting strike is hotter than the surface of the sun.

When he hears how close Colin has come to being hit, Dudley said he knows how he feels.

"I've been pretty close to a couple of direct strikes. It makes you really appreciate the power of nature," Dudley said.