Casey Hutchings, a fire captain for the Cal Fire unit in Fresno County, was caught in a lightning siege on Sept. 2 while looking for the ignition source of a wildfire on the outskirts of the city of Coalinga, Calif., about 60 miles southwest of Fresno.

As he scanned the area, flashes of lightning were visible over the hills in the distance, with bolts descending from the clouds and fanning out across the grassy landscape.

Then the storm got closer.

At one point, a bolt hit the ground 100 yards from his truck.

“It took my breath away,” said Captain Hutchings, who has worked as a firefighter for 23 years. “That was my first experience being that close to down strikes.”

California gets relatively little lightning compared with states in the Midwest and along the Gulf Coast where thunderstorms commonly form in hot, humid weather. Last year, California recorded 0.6 lightning strikes per square kilometer, while Florida saw 91.4, according to the weather data firm Vaisala.

California this summer has had more lightning than usual, with 79,698 lightning strikes recorded from June 1 to Aug. 31, the third-highest number for these three months since 2016, according to Vaisala. Northern California in particular recorded the most strikes compared with any other summer since 2016.

“This summer has been the year of lightning,” said Brent Wachter, a fire meteorologist with the U.S. Forest Service in Redding, Calif. “We’ve been breaking monthly records.”