A pair of lightning-sparked fires that took hold in rugged terrain in the Sequoia and Kings Canyon national parks exploded over the weekend, while another blaze to the south burned into a grove of giant sequoia trees, sending smoke billowing above popular tourist destinations and forcing closures in the area.Īll three fires ignited Thursday after a series of thunderstorms rolled in, sending more than 130 lighting strikes into the southern Sierra Nevada mountains and sparking the Paradise and Colony fires in the two parks.