FOREST RANCH, Calif. – Wildfires across the western United States and Canada put millions of people under air quality alerts on Sunday as thousands of firefighters battled the flames, including the largest wildfire in California this year.
The so-called Park Fire had scorched an area greater than the size of Los Angeles as of Sunday, darkening the sky with smoke and contributing poor air quality to a large swath of the northwestern U.S. and western Canada. The blaze spanned more than 562 square miles (1,455 square kilometers) of inland Northern California.
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Firefighters were helped by cooler temperatures and more humidity on Saturday and made some progress, increasing containment from zero to 12%. The fire has drawn comparisons to the 2018 Camp Fire that tore through the nearby community of Paradise, killing 85 people and torching 11,000 homes.
Paradise and several other Butte County communities were under an evacuation warning Sunday. However, Cal Fire operations section chief Jeremy Pierce had some good news for the area, saying around midday that the Park Fire's southernmost front, which is closest to Paradise, was “looking really good,” with crews focusing on extinguishing any remaining hot spots and removing other hazards over the next three days. He also said they don't expect it to move farther into Chico, a city of about 100,000 people just west of Paradise.
First responders initially focused on saving lives and property endangered by the Park Fire, but that has since shifted to confronting the blaze head-on, Jay Tracy, a spokesperson at the Park Fire headquarters, told The Associated Press by phone Sunday.
Nearly 4,000 firefighters are battling the blaze, aided by numerous helicopters and air tankers, and Tracy said reinforcements would give much-needed rest to local firefighters, some of whom have been working nonstop since the fire started Wednesday.
“This fire is surprising a lot of people with its explosive growth,” he said. “It is kind of unparalleled.”
In places where the flames had died down by Sunday, signs of the devastation were clear. Mailboxes and vehicles were covered with pink fire retardant dropped by aircraft in Cohasset. At other locations in the community the husks of a washer and dryer set were surrounded by burned debris from a home, and a charred motorcycle was still propped upright, balancing on rims after its tires apparently melted away.
Another part of the town was relatively unscathed, the Butte County Fire Chief said.
“We have an unburned island in that community that we are continuing to patrol and ensure that there are no hot spots in it,” Sjolund said.
Managing evacuation orders can be complex. Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea said authorities were about to downgrade the evacuation order to a warning for Forest Ranch when they learned a number of hot spots were reported nearby.
“That illustrates how rapidly things can change — we were all set to be able to reduce that order to get people back in there,” Honea said.
In Southern California, roughly 2,000 people had been ordered to evacuate because of a fire sweeping through the Sequoia National Forest. The wind-driven fire was moving fast, Kern County Fire Department public information officer Andrew Freeborn said, eating up more than 60 square miles (155.4 square kilometers) in four days.
The National Weather Service said a “red flag” warning was in effect for the region on Sunday, meaning dry fuels and stronger winds were increasing the fire danger.
The fire was exhibiting extreme fire conditions, fed by lots of dead plants that dried up after several years of rainfall, Freeborn said. The historic mining town of Havilah and several other communities have been “heavily impacted” by the fires, he said, but it was still too soon for damage assessment crews to count the number of burned homes.
So far, no fatalities have been reported in the Park and Borel fires. Some people in the region were choosing to ignore or disregard evacuation orders, increasing the danger for everyone, Freeborn said.
“When people are trying to ignore the orders and later call for rescue, that takes firefighters away from the task of fighting the fires," he said. "This fire is moving at a pace and with such intensity that individuals should not be thinking they can wait until the last minute. They need to get out of the way.”
Although the area expects cooler-than-average temperatures through the middle of this week, that doesn't mean "that fires that are existing will go away,” said Marc Chenard, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service's Weather Prediction Center in College Park, Maryland.
The Park Fire has destroyed at least 66 structures and damaged five others, Tracy said. Authorities initially believed 134 structures had been lost, based on drone footage, but they lowered the number after teams assessed the damage in-person.
“Unfortunately, that number will probably go up," Tracy said. "Each day that number has potential to grow — our teams obviously don’t do damage inspections when there is active fire in an area.”
Jerry White, 72, left his Magalia home when authorities issues an evacuation warning, a step below an evacuation order. Years earlier White sustained third-degree burns when a barbecue caused his coat to catch fire and he said the thought of that pain made him take the warning seriously.
“I don't want to catch fire again. It's one of the worst pains you can endure," White said. “I wanted to get out of dodge. Burns are bad.”
White's home is safe from the flames so far and he plans to keep living in the fire-prone mountain community, he said.
“I've been up here 50 years," White said. "The beach is more dangerous than here ... it was packed by sharks before, back when I used to surf. I'll take a fire over a shark any day!"
The Park Fire started Wednesday, when authorities say a man pushed a burning car into a gully in Chico and then fled. A man accused of setting the fire was arrested Thursday and is due in court Monday.
The Park Fire was one of more than 100 blazes burning in the U.S. on Sunday, according to the National Interagency Fire Center. Some were sparked by the weather, with climate change increasing the frequency of lightning strikes as the western U.S. endures blistering heat and bone-dry conditions.
Despite the improved fire weather in Northern California, conditions remained ripe for even more blazes to ignite, with the National Weather Service warning of “red flag” conditions on Sunday across wide swaths of Idaho, Montana, Utah, Colorado and Wyoming, in addition to parts of California.
Fires were also burning across eastern Oregon and eastern Idaho, where officials were assessing damage from a group of blazes referred to as the Gwen Fire, which was estimated at 43 square miles (111 square kilometers) as of Sunday.
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Boone reported from Boise, Idaho. AP reporters around the U.S. who contributed include Eugene Garcia, David Sharp, Becky Bohrer, John Antczak, Rio Yamat, David Sharp, Holly Ramer, Sarah Brumfield, Claire Rush, Terry Chea, Scott Sonner, Martha Bellisle and Amy Hanson.