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Fierce storm hits valley By Mark Freeman A fast and fierce summer storm bolted Monday evening through parts of the Rogue Valley, dumping intense rain and hail in southeast Medford and triggering lightning fires in the Applegate Valley. But the evening storm bypassed a packed Britt Festival lawn in Jacksonville, all but steered clear of the Jackson County Fair in Central Point and completely missed the National Weather Service rain gauges at the airport in Medford. So rains that some residents called the heaviest they had ever seen in some spots of Medford didn�t dampen a daisy in other parts of town. "You could see the rain rolling in, so I told my kids to pull their pool off the porch so the rain would fill it up," quipped Karen King as she watched a host of kids splash the remaining rainwater out of their pool on 10th Street in West Medford. "But my mom lives in Central Point and it didn�t rain a drop," King said. "Go figure." Firefighters instead had to fight a series of small fires triggered by 6 p.m. lightning strikes that preceded the 6:30 p.m. rains in Medford. Firefighters from the Oregon Department of Forestry and Applegate Rural Fire District attacked four fires that started within moments of each other in the Anderson Butte area due west of Ashland, said Dan Thorpe, the state�s Medford Unit forester. The largest fire, which was named the Nelson Fire, burned about 15 acres of private and Bureau of Land Management lands, Thorpe said. Three others in the area, all around the crest between the Bear Creek and Applegate valleys, cumulatively burned about a half-acre, Thorpe said. About three dozen firefighters from the two agencies were on the scene, and efforts were aided by two bulldozers, water-dropping helicopters and an airplane that dropped a single load of retardent on the largest blaze, Thorpe said. Pacific Power reported no power outages or related problems associated with the rains. In Medford, sheets of rain doused the downtown and south Medford areas about 6:40 p.m., then raced through most of east Medford before blowing away and leaving clouds and some sunlight behind. Joggers darted for cover and cars pulled to the curb around Bear Creek Park, where the cloudburst blurred motorists� vision. Batches of BB-sized hail also fell in southeast Medford. Only a few sprinkles, not even enough to dampen the parking lot dust, fell at the Expo. And those watching the Indigo Girls at Britt heard thunder and saw lightning, but suffered none of the wetness. The storm will go down in meteorological records as a non-event because the rains missed the official weather service gauges at the airport. Obituaries | Sports | Business | Classifieds | Tempo | Prime Times | So Oregon Sites | Outdoor Journal | Subscribe | Contact | Movies | Advertise | Real Estate Showcase | Archive | Editorials | Letters to the editor | Religion | Wake-up Call | NIE | Cyber Chef | Job Network | So Oregon Weather | WSJ Northwest | Forums | AP Wire | AP Money | F.A.Q. | Awards Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. The Community Newspaper Subsidiary of Dow Jones & Co, Inc Copyright �The Mail Tribune 2000, Medford, Oregon USA