California’s largest active fire expanded significantly on Friday evening, growing quickly due to extremely dry conditions and posing a threat to thousands of homes as firefighters worked to contain the blaze.
The Park Fire’s rapid spread and intensity prompted fire officials to draw comparisons to the devastating Camp Fire that ravaged Paradise in 2018, claiming 85 lives and destroying 11,000 homes.
Over 130 structures have already been destroyed by the Park Fire, with thousands more at risk as evacuations were mandated in Butte, Plumas, Tehama, and Shasta counties. By Friday night, the fire had spread to 480 square miles and was moving rapidly north and east after being ignited on Wednesday by an individual who pushed a burning car into a gully in Chico.
“There’s a substantial amount of fuel in the area which is causing the fire to spread at a rapid rate,” said Cal Fire incident commander Billy See during a briefing, noting that the fire was advancing up to 8 square miles per hour on Friday afternoon.
Authorities at Lassen Volcanic National Park evacuated personnel from Mineral, a town of around 120 residents where the park headquarters are situated, as the fire progressed towards Highway 36 and the park’s eastern boundary.
Communities across the Western United States and Canada were under siege from wildfires on Friday, with incidents ranging from rapidly moving blazes sparked by lightning in rural Idaho to new evacuations in eastern Washington.
In eastern Oregon, a pilot was tragically found dead in a small air tanker plane that crashed while battling one of the many wildfires raging across several Western states.
As of Friday, over 110 active fires covering 2,800 square miles were burning in the U.S., with some of these fires attributed to weather conditions exacerbated by climate change, including increased lightning strikes due to record heat and dry weather.
Fire crews managed to make progress on a group of fires in the Plumas National Forest near the California-Nevada border, with most of the 1,000 evacuated residents returning home. Some crews were redirected to help combat the escalating Park Fire.
Forest Ranch evacuee Sherry Alpers fled her home with her 12 small dogs and opted to stay in her car outside a Red Cross shelter in Chico to keep her pets close by. She expressed that her priority was the safety of her dogs, not the material possessions in her home.
Meanwhile, Brian Bowles found himself in a similar situation, sleeping in his car with his dog Diamon after uncertainly about the fate of his mobile home. He debated whether to use a gift card for lodging or fuel for his car.
In Oregon, a pilot lost their life as their small air tanker crashed while battling the Falls Fire near Seneca. Devastating wildfires also forced thousands to flee Jasper National Park in the Canadian Rockies.
Wildfires sparked by lightning in Idaho resulted in evacuations and significant burn acreage, with several communities affected. Videos depicting the chaos and destruction were shared on social media, capturing the scale of the emergency.
Oregon still faced the largest active fire in the U.S., the Durkee Fire, which joined forces with the Cow Fire, burning close to 630 square miles with containment at only 20% on Friday.
The National Interagency Fire Center reported over 27,000 fires burning more than 5,800 square miles in the U.S. this year, with Canada also experiencing significant wildfire activity.
