The largest active fire in the United States—known as the Park fire—continues to burn and spread in Northern California due to dry grass, timber, and steep terrain that makes firefighting efforts difficult, according to state fire officials.
Slightly lighter winds July 30 were expected to bring both benefits and challenges.
“It’s going to be advantageous for the fire behavior, but it’s going to affect how quickly the smoke moves out,” Brian Newman, assistant chief for California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire), said in a briefing July 30.
But he said that as the smoke dissipates, ground temperatures will increase and cause the fire to grow.
Made up of timber, brush, and oak woodlands, the terrain is “holding a lot of heat” and presenting challenges to firefighters, he said.
“This really rough country is really rugged to get into,” Newman said. “Essentially, the fuels are available,” around the clock.
In certain areas on the eastern portion of the blaze, the fire traveled three miles overnight, and officials expect the trend to continue due to dry brush, he said.
Following a month of record high temperatures that helped dry out grasses that flourished during the rainy season, the fire started near Chico, California, north of Sacramento July 24.
Wind gusts from the southwest combined with low humidity contributed to the fire’s quick spread, a Cal Fire incident report released July 30 said.
Sparks carried by wind have created spot fires, and hilly terrain is fueling the flames spreading in multiple directions, officials said.
More than 391,000 acres have burned as of Wednesday, according to Cal Fire.
Much of the area has not burned in decades, which could lead to a fire that burns for a long time, according to Cal Fire.
Officials noted the Park fire’s perimeter of 260 miles indicates it has charred more than three times the area of Lake Tahoe.
“We’ve got a large fire here,” Mark Brunton, battalion chief for Cal Fire, said during the briefing. “This is a beast.”
Though daytime temperatures were seasonally mild the last two days, daily increases are expected in the coming week, which will exacerbate fire conditions, officials said.
“It’s been a very complex incident,” Brunton said. “And it’s going to continue to be a complex incident.”
More than 5,500 firefighters are battling the fire, using 41 helicopters, 497 fire engines, 170 bulldozers, and 115 water tenders, among other crews and equipment.
Nearly 200 structures were reported destroyed, as of early July 30, after crews inspected about half of the burn area. More than 4,200 structures are currently listed as threatened.
“Damage inspection teams continue to complete more inspections within the current fire perimeter and continue to identify and verify structures that have been damaged or destroyed,” the incident report said. “The number of structures reported continue to adjust as the inspection team verifies impacts.”
Firefighters are prioritizing defending structures when possible, and crews are seeking to build containment lines by scraping vegetation and exposing dirt in wide swaths in an attempt to prevent the fire from spreading.
Thousands of residents have been evacuated or warned they might be. Evacuation centers have been staged at the Neighborhood Church in Chico, the Vet’s Center in Los Molinos in Tehama County, and St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Red Bluff.
The blaze is blamed on arson, and the man allegedly responsible—Ronnie Dean Stout II—was charged July 29 with setting a car on fire and pushing it into a gully known as “Alligator Hole.”
While some evacuees may be able to return home in the coming days, officials urge those in the vicinity of the fire to remain vigilant and prepared to evacuate on a moment’s notice.
“We ask that the public continue to be diligent and prepared due to the continued erratic fire activity,” officials wrote in the report.
So far, no fatalities or injuries have been reported.
Now the fifth largest fire by acres burned in state history, the Park fire is expected to challenge some of the biggest in history and is quickly approaching fourth place—currently held by the SCU Lightning Complex fire which consumed 397,000 acres in 2020.
The August Complex tops the list—with more than 1 million acres burned over 86 days in 2020 across six counties in Northern California after lightning strikes ignited the blaze.
Acreage totals for the Park fire are expected to grow, but the area is relatively sparsely populated, though larger city centers—including Red Bluff and Chico—are located near the fire’s perimeter.
