The Park fire in Northern California has grown to more than 360,000 acres under less favorable weather conditions Sunday, with fire activity picking up again, according to officials.
The fire near Chico, California, which started Wednesday, has travelled across four counties and was the largest fire burning in the United States on Sunday. It was caused by arson, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.
The fire was 12 per cent contained Sunday afternoon, and more than 4,000 firefighters and other personnel were involved in the effort, said Billy See, Cal Fire’s incident commander. At least 67 structures have been destroyed or damaged, he said. Over 4,000 structures are threatened, according to Cal Fire.
A change in weather conditions had helped firefighters make progress since Saturday, when the fire was zero percent contained.
But by Sunday afternoon, conditions had changed for the worse and again posed a challenge to firefighters. “This afternoon, the smoke has cleared, the sun has come out. We’re starting to get some solar heating, and we’re also getting increased winds in the upper canyons,” See said at a news conference.
About 4,200 people were under an evacuation order within the unincorporated areas of Butte County, Kory Honea, the county sheriff, said at a Sunday news conference. In total, more than 8,000 people were under evacuation orders in Butte and Tehama counties, said Jeremy Hollingshead, a spokesperson with the Yuba City Fire Department. Lassen Volcanic National Park was closed and evacuated Saturday as the fire approached the western edge of the park.
Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at the University of California, Los Angeles, warned that another prolonged heat wave was forecast for the fire zone this week.
“This fire will likely be burning for weeks, if not months,” Swain said.
Across the country, more than 26,000 firefighters and other personnel have been working to tame active blazes that have scorched more than 2 million acres.
In Oregon, firefighters were battling a number of wildfires fueled by sweltering conditions and extreme lightning, including five that had surpassed 100,000 acres each.