Thousands of firefighters battling a wildfire in Northern California got a little help from the elements Saturday morning, just hours after the blaze exploded, sending huge swirling plumes into the sky and scorching an area the size of Los Angeles. The fire was one of several raging across the western United States and Canada, fanned by wind and heat.
Cooler temperatures and increased humidity on Saturday could help slow Park Fire, the largest fire since the beginning of the year in CaliforniaA man has been arrested on suspicion of starting the blaze, which started in a park Wednesday afternoon and grew from about 6,400 acres to a staggering 239,100 acres by Friday.
Weather conditions are improving, but that may or may not have an impact on the fires, said Marc Chenard, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service Weather Prediction Center in College Park, Maryland.
Temperatures are expected to be cooler than average through the middle of next week, but “that doesn’t mean the existing fires will go away,” he said.
More than 130 structures have been destroyed so far, and thousands more are at risk as evacuations have been ordered in four California counties: Butte, Plumas, Tehama and Shasta.
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Authorities said a man pushed a burning car around 3 p.m. Wednesday into the upper Bidwell Park area in Chico, then calmly mingled with others fleeing the scene. The car caught fire, sparking a larger blaze. Authorities later identified the suspect as Ronnie Dean Stout II, 42. A local judge issued an arrest warrant and Stout was booked into jail.
“It’s going to be another dynamic day,” Cal Fire Commander Billy See said during a briefing Saturday.
He said the fire had been growing at 20 square kilometres per hour since it started. However, there was cautious optimism as weather conditions had slowed the fire’s progress in some areas and firefighters were able to plan and deploy additional personnel.
“Today we have almost three times as many staff as we had yesterday morning,” he said. “We still don’t have enough.”
He advised his crews to be aggressive and cautious and to take advantage of what will likely be the best conditions they will experience in the coming days.
More than 110 active fires covering 3,000 square miles (7,500 square kilometers) were burning across the United States as of Friday, according to the National Interagency Fire Center. Some of them were sparked by weather, with climate change increasing the frequency of lightning strikes as the region endures record heat and extreme drought conditions.
Amanda Brown, who lives in the same community where Stout was arrested, said she was stunned that someone would set a fire in an area where memories of the devastation in Paradise are still fresh.
“The fact that someone would deliberately put our community through this again is incredibly cruel. I don’t understand it,” said Brown, 61, who was about a mile from the fire but had not been ordered to evacuate.
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Elsewhere, fire crews were making progress on another complex of fires raging in the Plumas National Forest Traffic was backed up for miles near the California-Nevada border, Forest Service spokeswoman Adrienne Freeman said. Traffic was backed up on a stretch of the main highway between Los Angeles and Las Vegas as crews continued Saturday to battle a fire that started the day before when a truck carrying lithium-ion batteries crashed and rolled onto its side.
Evacuee Sherry Alpers fled with her 12 small dogs and decided to stay in her car outside a Red Cross shelter in Chico after learning the animals would not be allowed in. She ruled out going to another shelter after learning the dogs would be kept in cages, since her dogs have always been free-roaming at her home.
Alpers said she doesn’t know if the fire spared her home or not, but she added that as long as her dogs are safe, she doesn’t worry about material things. “I’m a little worried, but not that much,” she said. “If it’s over, it’s over.”
The National Interagency Fire Center said more than 27,000 wildfires have burned more than 5,800 square miles in the United States this year, and in Canada, more than 8,000 square miles (22,800 square kilometers) have burned in more than 3,700 fires so far, according to its National Wildfire Situation Report released Wednesday.
