California's largest active wildfire erupted late Friday, growing rapidly amid dry fuel and threatening thousands of homes as firefighters scrambled to tackle the danger.
The Park fire's intensity and dramatic spread have led fire officials to draw unwelcome comparisons to the monstrous campfire that raged 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 have been ordered in four counties: Butte, Plumas, Tehama and Shasta. By Friday night it was 480 square miles (1,243 square kilometers) in size and moving rapidly north and east after igniting Wednesday, when authorities said a man pushed a burning car into a gully in Chico and then calmly mingled with others fleeing the scene.
“There's a tremendous amount of fuel out there and it's going to continue at this rapid rate,” Billy See, Cal Fire's incident commander, told a news conference. He said the fire was advancing up to 8 square miles (21 square kilometers) per hour Friday afternoon.
Lassen Volcanic National Park officials evacuated staff from Mineral, a community of about 120 people that is home to the park's headquarters, 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 Friday from a fast-moving fire sparked by lightning that sent people fleeing on fire-ringed roads in rural Idaho to a new blaze that evacuations in eastern Washington.
In eastern Oregon, a pilot was found dead in a small tanker plane that crashed while fighting one of the many wildfires that have spread across several western states.
More than 110 active fires covering 2,800 square miles (7,250 square kilometers) were burning in the US 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 experiences record heat and dryness.
A wildfire in eastern Washington destroyed three homes and five outbuildings near the community of Tyler, which was 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 km), he said.
In Chico, California, Carli Parker is one of hundreds who fled their homes as the Park Fire approached. Parker decided to leave her Forest Ranch residence with her family when the fire started burning across the street. She had previously been forced out of two houses by fire and said she had little hope that her residence would remain unscathed.
“I think we felt we were in danger because the police had come to our house because we signed up for early evacuation warnings and they ran to their vehicle after telling us we had to self-evacuate 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 is being held without bail pending his arraignment Monday, officials said. There was no response to an email to the district attorney asking if the suspect had legal representation or anyone who could comment on his behalf.
Fire crews 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 fires in the Gold Complex were returning home on Friday. Some crews were peeling off to help fight the park fire.
“As the (Park) fire out west demonstrates, some of these fires just explode and burn at a rate of spread that's hard to imagine,” said Tim Hike, Forest Service incident commander for the Gold Complex fire. 50 miles (80 km) northwest of Reno, he said Friday. “Fire doesn't look so 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 the animals would not be allowed inside. She ruled out traveling to another shelter after learning the dogs would be kept in cages, as her dogs have always roamed free at 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 material things.
“I'm kind of worried, but not that much,” she said. “If it's gone, it's gone.”
Brian Bowles was also sitting in his car outside the shelter with his dog Diamon. He said he didn't know if his mobile home was still standing.
Bowles said he only has a $100 gift card he received from the United Way, which he gave to evacuees.
“Now the question is, do I get a comfortable motel room for one night? Or put gas in the car and sleep here?” he said. “Tough choice.”
In Oregon, a Grant County search and rescue team located a small, single-engine air tanker Friday morning that went missing while battling the 219-square-mile (567-square-kilometer) Waterfall Fire burning near the town of Seneca and Malheur National Forest. . The pilot died, Bureau of Land Management intelligence officer Lisa Clark said. No one else was on board the office-contracted aircraft when it descended into steep, wooded terrain.
The most damage so far has been in Jasper National Park in the Canadian Rockies, where a fast-moving wildfire has forced 25,000 people to flee and devastated the park's namesake town, a World Heritage Site.
In Idaho, lightning sparked rapid fires and the evacuation of several communities. The fires were burning about 80 square kilometers as of Friday afternoon.
Videos posted on social media include a man who said he heard explosions as he fled Juliaetta, about 27 miles southeast of the University of Idaho campus in Moscow. The town of just over 600 residents was evacuated Thursday just ahead of the raging fires, as were several other communities near the Clearwater River and the Nez Perce Tribal Hatchery, which raises salmon.
There is no estimate yet on the number of buildings burned in Idaho, nor is there information on damage to urban communities, officials said Friday morning.
Oregon still has the largest active wildfire in the United States, the Durkee Fire, which combined with the Cow Fire has burned nearly 1,630 square kilometers. It remains unpredictable and was limited to just 20 percent on Friday, according to government website InciWeb.
The National Interagency Fire Center said more than 27,000 fires have burned more than 15,000 square kilometers in the U.S. this year, and in Canada, more than 22,800 square kilometers have burned in more than 3,700 fires so far, according to its National Situation Report wild fires. issued on Wednesday.
