What are the characteristics of lightning that influence the probability that an individual strokewill ignite a wildfire? It is generally accepted that long continuing current following some returnstrokes is the cause of ignition in forest fuels. However, because these low-level currents are notdetectable with operative Lightning Location Systems, other lightning characteristics correlatingwith its occurrence have been proposed and used to estimate ignition probability. These variablesare typically: flash multiplicity, stroke polarity, stroke peak current and flash interstroke interval.The region of Catalonia is prone to forest fires, and to set a probability of ignition to eachcloud-to-ground flash could be useful in wildfire management. A set of more than 500lightning-ignited wildfires that occurred in Catalonia between 2004 and 2009 was analyzed, inorder to find which flash/stroke characteristics are related to ignition. Lightning activity wasgathered by the Lightning Location System of the Meteorological Service of Catalonia. Lightningrelated to these wildfires were selected from the lightning database using a proximity index. Thestatistical analysis has shown that the sample of lightning causing ignition does not present anycharacteristic that differentiates it from the overall population. Polarity percents, multiplicity andpeak current frequency distributions in the lightning causing ignition set are similar to theclimatological ones. Besides this analysis, a high-speed video field campaign of natural lightningrecordings was conducted, to obtain new insight into the characteristics of lightning bearing acontinuing current. Video analysis has shown that almost each kind of cloud‐to‐ground (CG) flash(negative, positive, single or multiple stroke) can have a continuing current component. Onlynegative strokes with peak currents above 20 kA were not followed by long continuing current.These results are similar to studies carried out in other regions.