The massive wildfire in Northern California, which in three days became one of the largest ever recorded in this western US state, continues to rage unchecked.
HDN Newsroom
The wildfire, dubbed the Park Fire — the largest in California this summer — had already burned nearly 1.4 million acres as of late Tuesday, making it the seventh largest in the state's history, California's CalFire said.
The fire, which forced more than 4,000 people from their homes, broke out in a rural and mountainous area near the small town of Chico, which is about 145 kilometers north of Sacramento, the state capital.
"The extreme conditions of this fire continue to pose a challenge to firefighters. For now it is still raging unchecked," despite extinguishing efforts by about 2,500 people, more than a dozen helicopters and several aircraft, according to CalFire.
"The Park Fire is still raging very intensely because of the steep terrain and winds (...) that cause a lot of reinforcement" of the front, CalFire clarified.
But the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection said in a statement that cooler temperatures and more humidity were expected in the area, which could help slow the spread of the fire.
Police arrested a 42-year-old man suspected of causing the fire, who was seen pushing and throwing a car on fire into a canyon.
The fire broke out on Wednesday near Chico, Butte County, and within hours destroyed a huge area of it, as well as neighboring Tehama County.
According to the most recent information, 134 buildings have burned so far, while smoke from the fire has reached neighboring states.
Like other residents, Julia Yarbow saw her home reduced to ashes. "That's what was left of my house," she told CBS, pointing to the rubble of her house from which smoke was still billowing out.
The massive wildfire evokes bad memories for residents of the city of Paradise, which is about 15 kilometers from Chico and where 85 people died in 2018 in the deadliest wildfire in California history.
Due to the very rapid spread of the "Park Fire", Paradise is now on high alert for the possibility that it may need to be evacuated.
U.S. President Joe Biden was briefed on the large blaze and instructed his team to do everything they could to support efforts to extinguish it, a White House official said.
The Park Fire is the largest of dozens of active fire fronts raging in the U.S., which have burned more than about 8 million acres, according to the National Interagency Fire Center.
In the state of Oregon, several wildfires are raging, including the Durkee Fire, which has burned more than 1.1 million acres in the eastern part of the state, according to authorities.
A firefighter has died when a single-engine small firefighting aircraft crashes near the blaze, dubbed the Falls Fire, in the southeastern part of the state of Oregon, the U.S. fire department said Friday.
This is the second death of a firefighter in a plane crash in recent weeks.
Earlier this month, a pilot was reported dead in firefighting efforts outside Helena, Montana.
The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the cause of both plane crashes, but the investigation to determine exactly what went wrong could take a few months.
After two rainy winters, the western U.S. has faced several heat waves since June, which are drying out new vegetation from rains and favoring the spread of wildfires.
Repeated heat waves are an indicator of global warming linked to climate change caused by humanity's dependence on fossil fuels, according to scientists.
