California's largest active fire exploded in size on Friday night, growing rapidly amid burning fuel and threatening thousands of homes as firefighters battled to contain the danger.
The Park Fire's intensity and dramatic spread prompted fire officials to draw unwelcome comparisons to the monstrous campfire, which burned out of control in nearby Paradise in 2018, killing 85 people and burning 11,000 homes.
More than 130 structures have been destroyed by this fire so far, and thousands more are threatened as evacuations were ordered in four counties: Butte, Plumas, Tehama and Shasta. It stood at 480 square kilometers (1,243 square miles) as of Friday night and was moving rapidly north and east after igniting Wednesday when authorities said a man pushed a burning car into a ravine in Chico and then calmly mingled with others fleeing from the place.
“There's a tremendous amount of fuel out there and it's going to continue at this rapid rate,” Cal Fire incident commander Billy See said at a briefing. He said the fire was growing up to 21 square kilometers per hour by Friday afternoon.
Lassen Volcanic National Park officials evacuated personnel from Mineral, a community of about 120 people where the park headquarters is located, as the fire moved north toward Highway 36 and east toward the park.
Municipalities elsewhere in the western United States and Canada were under siege Friday, from a lightning-triggered blaze that sent people fleeing on fire-swept roads in rural Idaho to a new blaze that prompted evacuations in eastern Washington.
In eastern Oregon, a pilot was found dead in a small air tanker that crashed while fighting one of the many wildfires spreading across several western states.
More than 110 active fires covering 2,800 square miles (7,250 square kilometers) were burning in the United States on Friday, according to the National Interagency Fire Center. Some were caused by the weather, with climate change increasing the frequency of lightning strikes as the region endures record heat and bone-dry conditions.
A fire in eastern Washington destroyed three homes and five outbuildings near Tyler, which were evacuated Friday afternoon, said Ryan Rodruck, a spokesman for the Washington Department of Natural Resources. Firefighters were able to contain the Columbia Basin fire in Spokane County to about half a square mile (1.3 square kilometers), he said.
In Chico, California, Carli Parker is one of hundreds who fled their homes as the park fire closed in. Parker decided to leave his Forest Ranch residence with his family when the fire started burning across the street. She has previously been forced out of two homes by fire, and she said she had little hope that her residence would remain unscathed.
“I think I felt I was in danger because the police had come to our house because we had reported early evacuation warnings, and they ran to their vehicle after telling us we had to evacuate ourselves and they wouldn't come back,” said Parker, a mother of five.
Ronnie Dean Stout, 42, of Chico, was arrested early Thursday in connection with the fire and was being held without bond pending a hearing Monday, officials said. There was no response to an email to the district attorney asking if the suspect had legal representation or someone who could comment on his behalf.
Firefighters were making progress on another complex of fires burning in the Plumas National Forest near the California-Nevada line, Forest Service spokeswoman Adrienne Freeman said. Most of the 1,000 residents evacuated by the lightning-triggered gold complex fires were on their way home Friday. Some crews peeled off to help fight the park fire.
“As seen with the (park) fire out west, some of these fires just explode and burn at rates of spread that are just hard to even imagine,” said Tim Hike, Forest Service incident commander on the Gold Complex fire. 50 miles (80 km) northwest of Reno, Friday said. “The fire doesn't look that bad until it does. And then it might just 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 being told animals would not be allowed inside. She ruled out traveling to another shelter after being told the dogs would be kept in cages, as her dogs have always roamed freely in her home.
Alpers said she doesn't know if the fire spared her home or not, but she said as long as her dogs are safe, she doesn't care about the material things.
“I'm a little worried, but not too much,” she said. “If it's gone, it's gone.”
Brian Bowles was also staying in his car outside the shelter with his dog Diamon. He said he doesn't know if his RV is still there.
Bowles said he only has a $100 gift card he received from the United Way, which distributed them to evacuees.
“Now the question is, do I get a motel room and be comfortable for one night? Or do I put gas in the car and sleep in here?” he said. “Hard choice.”
In Oregon, a Grant County Search and Rescue team Friday morning found a small single-engine air tanker that had gone missing while battling the 219-square-mile (567-square-kilometer) Falls Fire burning near the town of Seneca and the Malheur National Forest. The pilot died, said Bureau of Land Management Information Officer Lisa Clark. No one else was on board the agency-contracted aircraft when it went down in steep forest terrain.
The worst damage so far has been 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 city, a World Heritage site.
In Idaho, lightning triggered rapid wildfires and the evacuation of several communities. The fires were burning about 80 square kilometers Friday afternoon.
Videos posted on social media include a man who said he heard explosions as he fled Juliaetta, about 43 kilometers southeast of the University of Idaho campus in Moscow. The town of about 600 residents was evacuated Thursday just before the roaring fires, as were several other communities near the Clearwater River and the Nez Perce Tribal Hatchery Complex, which raises salmon.
There is no estimate yet of the number of buildings burned in Idaho, nor is there 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 along with the Cow Fire burned nearly 1,630 square miles. It remains unpredictable and was only 20 percent contained Friday, according to the government website InciWeb.
The National Interagency Fire Center said more than 27,000 fires have burned more than 15,000 square kilometers in the United States this year, and in Canada more than 22,800 square kilometers have burned in more than 3,700 fires so far, according to the National Wildland Fire Situation Report released Wednesday.
