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More than 700 lightning strikes peppered a five-county area that covers Southern Oregon and Northern California Wednesday, with bolts sparking at least three small fires in Jackson County. From about noon to 7 p.m., 713 cloud-to-ground strikes touched down across Jackson, Klamath, Douglas, Lake and Siskiyou counties, according to the National Weather Service. Lake County bore the brunt of the storm with 271 strikes, while 176 struck Klamath County and 146 touched down in Jackson County. Douglas and Siskiyou counties saw 72 and 48 strikes, respectively. But the number of ground strikes accounted for only a fraction of the activity. “Most of the lightning we saw yesterday was cloud-to-cloud,” said meteorologist Brian Nieuwenhuis, estimating the number of cloud-to-cloud lightning was about 10 times the number of ground strikes. “There was a ton of cloud-to-cloud lightning.” The bolts that did strike ground created three small fires in Jackson County, with two at the northeast end of the county and the other near the southern border. The two northern fires sprang up near Buck Point, east of the Eagle Point area, Oregon Department of Forestry public information officer Melissa Cano said. One fire was one-tenth of an acre in size, the other one-hundredth. “Those are completely mopped up, lined, they’re good to go,” Cano said. The other fire, also about one-tenth of an acre, was on Grizzly Peak. It also has since been located and mopped up. So far, there have been two reports of smoke in the Lake Creek area, but nothing has been found. Fire danger to jump to moderate No new thunderstorms are expected the rest of the week, but warmer temperatures are forecast heading into the weekend, with a high temperature close to 100 degrees expected for Medford on Sunday. Because of that and lack of rain, ODF will raise the fire danger to “moderate” on Saturday, a move that affects the agency’s 1.8 million acres of lands it protects on state, private, county, and Bureau of Land Management lands. It’s the typical time of year when such a jump takes place, Cano said. Several new restrictions will go into effect at 12:01 a.m. Saturday. Smoking will be allowed only on enclosed vehicles on improved roads, or in boats on the water. Open fires will be prohibited, though portable cooking stoves using liquefied or bottled fuels will be allowed. Use of chain saws will be prohibited between 1 and 8 p.m. Mowing dead or dry grass is also restricted during the same time frame. During travel, motorized vehicles are allowed only on improved roads. A shovel and either a gallon of water or a fire extinguisher that’s at least 2?½ pounds are required while traveling. Visit www.swofire.com for more information. Reach web editor Ryan Pfeil at [email protected] or at 541-776-4468.