This post has been updated with the latest information about the Park Fire.
Only three weeks after the Thompson Fire rapidly tore through nearly 3,800 acres on the northern edge of Oroville, Northern California’s Butte County is contending with one of the biggest fires in state history.
The Park Fire torched 350,000 acres by Sunday morning, becoming the seventh-largest fire ever recorded in California in less than four days since a suspected arsonist pushed a flaming car into a gully.
A day into the wildfire, it was already spreading at a rate of about 5,000 acres per hour.
California’s largest fire of the year has since expanded from Butte into Tehama, Plumas and Shasta counties and is essentially uncontrolled, with just 12% containment, according to a Cal Fire update just before 8 a.m. Sunday.
Evacuation orders were issued for parts of those four counties, with red-flag warnings extending farther.
Chico, a city of more than 100,000 people, is just south of the burn zone, which is close to the area destroyed by the devastating Camp Fire. That 2018 blaze, which all but consumed the towns of Paradise and Magalia, killed 85 people and remains the state’s deadliest and costliest wildfire to date.
Officials say the Park Fire ignited Wednesday night when a man allegedly set a car on fire and pushed it into a ravine in Bidwell Park, Chico’s largest green space, sending it rolling 60 feet down an embankment. Authorities on Thursday arrested Ronnie Dean Stout, 42, and charged him with intentional arson. Stout is scheduled to be arraigned Monday.
