California's largest wildfire erupted Friday evening, rapidly growing through dry fuel, threatening thousands of homes as firefighters scrambled to contain the danger.
The intensity and dramatic spread of the Park Fire have led fire officials to compare it to the monstrous Camp Fire that raged out of control in nearby Paradise in 2018, killing 85 people and destroying 11,000 homes.
The fire has so far destroyed more than 130 structures and threatened thousands more as evacuations were ordered across four counties: Butte, Plumas, Tehama and Shasta. It had spread to 480 square miles (1,243 square kilometers) Friday night and was moving rapidly north and east after the blaze broke out Wednesday, when authorities said a man pushed a burning car into a ravine in Chico and calmly blended in with others fleeing the scene.
“There’s a ton of fuel out there, and it’s going to continue to burn at a rapid rate,” Cal Fire Incident Commander Billy Sea said in a briefing. He said the fire was growing at a maximum of 8 square miles (21 square kilometers) per hour Friday afternoon.
Lassen Volcanic National Park officials evacuated staff from the Mineral area, home to about 120 people, where the park headquarters is located, as the fire moved north toward Highway 36 and east toward the park.
Other communities in the western United States and Canada were under siege Friday. Lightning-started fires sent people fleeing from blaze-lined roads in rural Idaho, while new fires in eastern Washington prompted evacuations.
In eastern Oregon, a pilot was found dead in a small airlift plane that crashed while fighting wildfires that were spreading across several western states.
More than 110 active fires were burning across 2,800 square miles (7,250 square kilometers) in the United States on Friday, according to the National Interagency Fire Center. Some were caused by weather, with climate change increasing the frequency of lightning strikes as the region endures record-breaking heat and bone-dry conditions.
The fire in eastern Washington destroyed three homes and five outbuildings near Tyler and forced evacuations 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 a half-square mile (1.3 square kilometers).
In Chico, California, Carly Parker was one of hundreds who fled their homes as the Park Fire approached. Parker was leaving her Forest Ranch home with her family when the fire started burning across the street. She had previously been evicted from two homes by the fire and said she had little hope that her home would survive.
“We signed up for early warning so I felt like I was in danger when the police came to our house and told us to self-evacuate and then ran to our vehicle and said they wouldn't come back,” said Parker, a mother of five.
Ronnie Dean Stout, 42, of Chico, was arrested early Thursday morning in connection with the fire and is being held without bail pending arraignment Monday, officials said. An email to the district attorney asking if the suspect has legal representation or if anyone could comment on his behalf went unanswered.
Firefighters are making progress on another complex fire burning in the Plumas National Forest near the California-Nevada border, Forest Service spokesman Adrian Freeman said. Most of the 1,000 residents who were evacuated by the lightning-caused Gold Complex Fire returned to their homes Friday. Some firefighters left to help fight the park fire.
“As we saw with the (park) fires out west, some of these fires are growing and exploding at a rate that you can’t even imagine,” Tim Haigh, the Forest Service incident commander for the Gold Complex fire, about 50 miles (80 kilometers) northwest of Reno, said Friday. “They don’t look that bad. And by then, it could be too late.”
Forest Ranch evacuee Sherry Alpers fled with 12 small dogs and decided to stay in her car outside the Red Cross shelter in Chico after learning the animals could not be brought inside. She ruled out moving to another shelter after learning the dogs would be caged, because her dogs have always been free to roam around her home.
Ms. Alpers said she doesn't know if the fire will save her home, but she doesn't care about material things as long as her dogs are safe.
“I'm a little worried, but not that much,” she said. “If it's gone, it's gone.”
Brian Boles was also staying in his car outside the shelter with his dog, Diamond. He said he didn't know if his mobile home was still standing.
Boles said she only had $100 gift cards from the United Way that were distributed to refugees.
“Now the question is, do I get a motel room and stay comfortable for the night? Or do I fill up the car and sleep here?” he said. “It's a tough choice.”
In Oregon, Grant County Search and Rescue found a small, single-engine air tanker missing Friday morning while battling the 219-square-mile (567-square-kilometer) Falls Fire burning near the town of Seneca and the Malheur National Forest. The pilot was killed, said Lisa Clark, information officer for the Bureau of Land Management. No one else was aboard the Bureau-contracted aircraft when it crashed in steep forested terrain.
The hardest hit so far has been Jasper National Park in the Canadian Rockies, where fast-moving wildfires have forced the evacuation of 25,000 people and devastated the World Heritage-listed park's namesake town.
In Idaho, lightning sparked a fast-spreading wildfire and forced evacuations of several communities. The fire raged across about 80 square kilometers Friday afternoon.
Footage posted to social media shows a man who said he heard an explosion as he ran from Juliaetta, about 43 kilometers southeast of the University of Idaho campus in Moscow. The town of just over 600 people was evacuated just before the fire broke out Thursday, as were several communities near the Clearwater River and the Nez Perce Tribal hatchery complex, which farms salmon.
Officials said Friday morning they had no estimate on how many buildings were destroyed by the fire in Idaho and had no information on damage to urban areas.
Oregon still has the largest fire in the U.S., the Durkee Fire, which has combined with the Cow Fire to burn about 600 square miles (1,630 square kilometers). It remains unpredictable and was only 20 percent contained Friday, according to government website InciWeb.
The National Wildfire Status Report released Wednesday by the National Agency for Fire Protection said more than 27,000 fires have burned more than 15,000 square kilometers (6,000 sq mi) in the U.S. this year, while more than 3,700 fires have burned more than 22,800 square kilometers (9,000 sq mi) in Canada so far.
