California’s largest active fire exploded Friday night, growing rapidly amid dry fuel and threatening thousands of homes as firefighters struggled to cope with the danger.
The intensity and dramatic spread of the Park Fire have led firefighters to draw unwelcome comparisons to the monstrous Camp Fire, which burned out of control in nearby Paradise in 2018, killing 85 people and torching 11,000 homes.
More than 130 structures have been destroyed by this fire so far, and thousands more are threatened as evacuations have been ordered in four counties: Butte, Plumas, Tehama and Shasta. It was 1,243 square kilometers (480 square miles) as of Friday night and was moving quickly north and east after catching fire on Wednesday when authorities said a man pushed a burning car into a ravine in Chico and then calmly mingled with other people fleeing the scene.
“There’s a tremendous amount of fuel out there and it’s going to continue at this rapid pace,” Cal Fire incident commander Billy See said in a briefing. He said the fire was advancing at up to 8 square miles (21 square kilometers) per hour on Friday afternoon.
Lassen Volcanic National Park officials evacuated employees from Mineral, a community of about 120 people where park headquarters are located, as the fire moved north toward Highway 36 and east toward the park.
Communities elsewhere in the western U.S. and Canada were under siege on Friday, from a lightning-sparked wildfire that sent people fleeing along fire-lined roads in rural Idaho to a new fire that was prompting evacuations in eastern Washington.
In eastern Oregon, a pilot was found dead in a small tanker plane that crashed while fighting one of many wildfires spreading across several western states.
More than 110 active fires covering 2,800 square miles (7,250 square kilometers) were burning across the U.S. on Friday, according to the National Interagency Fire Center. Some have been caused by weather, with climate change increasing the frequency of lightning strikes as the region faces record heat and extremely dry conditions.
A fire in Eastern Washington destroyed three homes and five outbuildings near the community of Tyler, which was evacuated Friday afternoon, said Ryan Rodruck, spokesman for the Washington Department of Natural Resources. Firefighters were able to contain the fire in Spokane County’s Columbia Basin to about 3 square miles, he said.
In Chico, California, Carli Parker is one of hundreds who fled their homes as the park fire approached. Parker decided to leave his Forest Ranch residence with his family when the fire broke out across the street. She has already been forced out of two homes by fire and said she had little hope that her home would remain unharmed.
“I think I felt like I was in danger because the police came to our house because we had signed early evacuation warnings, and they were running to the vehicle after telling us that we needed to self-evacuate and that they weren’t going to come back,” Parker said. , mother of five children.
Ronnie Dean Stout, 42, of Chico, was arrested Thursday morning in connection with the fire and held without bond pending an arraignment Monday, authorities said. There was no response to an email sent to the prosecutor asking if the suspect had legal representation or anyone who could comment on his behalf.
Fire crews were advancing on another fire complex in the Plumas National Forest near the California-Nevada line, Forest Service spokeswoman Adrienne Freeman said. Most of the 1,000 residents evacuated by lightning-sparked fires in Complexo do Ouro were returning home on Friday. Some crews were heading out to help fight the fire in the park.
“As evidenced by the (Park) fire in the west, some of these fires are simply exploding and burning at rates of spread that are difficult to imagine,” Tim Hike, Forest Service incident commander for the Gold Complex Fire over 50 miles (80 km) northwest of Reno, said Friday. “The fire doesn’t seem that bad until it happens. And then it might be too late.”
Forest Ranch evacuee Sherry Alpers fled with her 12 small dogs and made the decision to stay in her car outside a Red Cross shelter in Chico after learning that animals would not be allowed inside. She ruled out traveling to another shelter after learning that the dogs would be kept in cages, as her dogs had always roamed freely in her home.
Alpers said she doesn’t know if the fire spared her home or not, but said as long as her dogs are safe, she doesn’t care about material things.
“I’m a little worried, but not that much,” she said. “If it’s over, it’s over.”
Brian Bowles was also in his car outside the shelter with his dog Diamon. He said he doesn’t know if his mobile home is still standing.
Bowles said he only has a $100 gift card he received from the United Way, which distributed them to evacuees.
“Now the question is, will I get a comfortable motel room for one night? Or do I put gas in the car and sleep here?” he said. “Tough choice.”
In Oregon, a Grant County search and rescue team on Friday morning located a small, single-engine air tanker that had gone missing while battling the 219-square-mile (567-square-kilometer) Falls Fire near the town of Seneca and the Malheur National Forest. . The pilot died, said Lisa Clark, information officer for the Bureau of Land Management. No one else was on board the aircraft hired by the agency when it crashed into steep, wooded terrain.
The heaviest damage so far was in Jasper National Park in the Canadian Rockies, where a fast-moving wildfire forced 25,000 people to flee and devastated the park’s namesake cityWorld Heritage.
In Idaho, lightning sparked rapid wildfires and the evacuation of several communities. The fires were burning about 31 square miles (80 square kilometers) as of Friday afternoon.
Videos posted on social media include a man who said he heard explosions while fleeing Juliaetta, about 27 miles southeast of the University of Idaho campus in Moscow. The town of just over 600 residents was evacuated Thursday shortly before the raging fires, as were several other communities near the Clearwater River and the Nez Perce Tribal Hatchery Complex, which raises salmon.
There is still no estimate of the number of buildings burned in Idaho, nor is there any information about damage to urban communities, officials said Friday morning.
Oregon still has the largest active fire in the United States, the Durkee Fire, which combined with the Cow Fire to burn nearly 630 square miles (1,630 square kilometers). It remains unpredictable and was only 20% contained as of Friday, according to the government website InciWeb.
The National Interagency Fire Center said more than 27,000 fires have burned more than 5,800 square miles (15,000 square kilometers) in the U.S. this year, and in Canada, more than 8,000 square miles (22,800 square kilometers) have burned in more than 3,700 fires, so even now, according to the National Wildfire Situation Report released Wednesday.
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Associated Press writers Holly Ramer, Sarah Brumfield, Claire Rush, Terry Chea, Scott Sonner, Martha Bellisle and Amy Hanson contributed to this report.
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