Massive Park Fire continues spread after start from flaming car, officials say (2024)

California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Friday declared a state of emergency in Butte and Tehama counties in response to the Park Fire, as well as in Plumas County in response to the separate Gold Complex Fire, which has burned about 3,000 acres.

“We are using every available tool to protect lives and property as our fire and emergency response teams work around the clock to combat these challenging fires,” he said in a statement, urging people to stay safe and remain alert.

Two minor injuries were reported in a Friday morning update on the Park Fire, and Cal Fire said 134 structures have been destroyed and more than 4,000 structures remain threatened.

In a Friday afternoon update, Cal Fire officials said fire crews had witnessed dramatic growth to the north of the flames and were looking for ways to curb the spread in that direction. Billy See, an incident commander with Cal Fire, said that while red-flag conditions were anticipated to remain in place until Friday evening, crews were hopeful that cooler temperatures and increased humidity into the weekend would better allow firefighters to tackle the flames.

See said about 1,700 personnel were on the ground, with more crews on the way to help fight the fire, which he said had been growing by about 4,000 to 5,000 acres per hour.

The fire started Wednesday afternoon and “exploded from a 400-acre fire to a more than 71,000-acre inferno consuming everything in its path” overnight into Thursday, Cal Fire said. By late Thursday, it was burning across more than 145,000 acres in Butte and Tehama counties and had produced several fire tornadoes.

The small mountain community of Cohasset is fully within the fire perimeter, said Zeke Lunder, a geographer who maps and reports on wildfires via the website the Lookout, in a Friday briefing. That does not mean that all structures in the community are impacted, however.

Further south, firefighters have so far been able to hold the fire at the highway, which he called a “huge win” for communities like Forest Ranch, Paradise and Magalia. Still, these places are not yet out of the woods.

Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea emphasized that residents in impacted areas should pay close attention to evacuation orders that are shifting as fire dangers develop.

“The fire doubled back and went through Cohasset,” Honea said in the Friday briefing. “We initially ordered the evacuation of Cohasset on Wednesday, so that area had about three days worth of [evacuation] warning and orders before the fire came through and caused a great deal of destruction.”

Winds of 10 to 20 mph with gusts up to 30 mph were expected on Friday, but those should begin to ease by Saturday, followed by a cooling trend this weekend.

In a briefing Thursday afternoon, UCLA climate scientist Daniel Swain said the Park Fire is “really the first fire in the past several years in California where I would call its behavior ‘extraordinary,’ and that’s not a good thing.”

Winds have been contributing to the fire’s extreme behavior and spread.

“The heat [of the fire] drives embers high into the atmosphere and they get blown downwind long distances. … So it can spread pretty fast that way,” said Craig Clements, a professor of meteorology and climate science at San José State University.

But the real culprit in the fire’s explosive spread is ultradry vegetation from weeks of extreme heat, which has dramatically escalated the fire season across much of the West.

Authorities said the fire was sparked by a man pushing a flaming car down a gully.

Butte County District Attorney Michael L. Ramsey said Ronnie Stout, 42, of Chico would be arraigned Monday on charges related to arson that have yet to be determined. Investigators say a witness saw him pushing a flaming car off an embankment in upper Bidwell Park.

“She saw him get into the vehicle, do something in the vehicle, get out of the vehicle, and then push the flaming vehicle down the embankment,” Ramsey told reporters. “We are here today because of that.” He said the vehicle was Stout’s mother’s car.

Stout was arrested early Thursday on a no-bail warrant, Ramsey said.

Butte County has repeatedly been ravaged by deadly and destructive wildfires. The Camp Fire nearly incinerated the town of Paradise in 2018, killing 85 people. On Friday, residents of Paradise were on edge after authorities told them to prepare for the chance they’ll need to evacuate as Park Fire flames spread.

The Park Fire has been compared to the Camp Fire, though the 2018 fire was driven by an extreme autumn windstorm. This fire is spreading with fairly typical summertime winds that happen in California’s Central Valley, Clements said.

In 2021, the Dixie Fire, which was sparked by PG&E power lines, devastated the town of Greenville, Calif., and burned nearly 1 million acres, the second-largest fire in state history. Earlier this month, the Thompson Fire near Oroville destroyed or damaged dozens of structures and burned more than 3,700 acres before fire crews contained it.

So far this year, 4,367 fires have erupted in California, burning at least 343,253 acres. These ignitions have come from a mix of causes, including lightning and arson. Scientists say that climate change is a driving force in making wildfires more explosive in California, and around the world.

Brianna Sacks and Kelsey Ables contributed to this report.