Stunning satellite images from over Northern California captured flames and a large smoke plume billowing from the this year's largest wildfire in California.
The Park Fire, one of more than 100 wildfires this week in California, began Wednesday when a burning car was pushed into a gully of dry brush in Chico. Flames spread quickly, pushing the fire to more than 45,000 in just a few hours.
Stunning satellite imagery shows the Park Fire exhibiting extreme wildfire behavior.
— CIRA (@CIRA_CSU) July 26, 2024
Today, the fire has exploded in size to more than 120,000 acres. pic.twitter.com/1VWNMCJcwO
On Monday, the fire in Butte, Plumas, Shasta and Tehama counties was an estimated 368,256 acres with containment at 12 percent.
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That's roughly 562 square miles. The city of Los Angeles is about 470 square miles of land area.
Firefighters were helped by improving weather over the weekend, but flames caused widespread damage and more evacuations were ordered. The location is about 15 miles west of the town of Paradise, which was devastated by the 2018 Camp Fire. More than 80 people died and more than 18,000 structures were damaged or destroyed in the deadliest and most destructive wildfire in California history.
The Park Fire exploded in size last night, becoming the largest wildfire in the state of California so far this year.
— CIRA (@CIRA_CSU) July 25, 2024
Notice how much brighter the flames appear compared to city lights in this imagery from NOAA-20. pic.twitter.com/5Lxh8S9j2K
The Park Fire had burned an area greater than the city of Los Angeles as of Monday, darkening the sky north of Sacramento. Winds and temperatures were expected to increase slightly amid a drop in humidity, officials said in an update early Monday.
Air quality alerts were issued for Monday in the northwestern U.S. and western Canada.
A man accused of setting the fire was arrested Thursday and is due in court Monday.
In California, Paradise and several other Butte County communities were under an evacuation warning Sunday. Yet the fire's southernmost front, which is closest to Paradise, was “looking really good," Cal Fire operations section chief Jeremy Pierce said around midday.
Officials did not expect it to move farther into Chico, a city of about 100,000 people just west of Paradise, and over the next three days crews plan to extinguish hot spots and remove hazards, Pierce said.
The focus on saving lives and endangered property has shifted to confronting the blaze head-on, Jay Tracy, a Park Fire headquarters spokesperson, told The Associated Press by phone Sunday.
Nearly 4,000 firefighters are battling the fire, aided by numerous helicopters and air tankers. Reinforcements are expected to give much-needed rest to local firefighters, some of whom have been working nonstop since Wednesday, Tracy said.
“This fire is surprising a lot of people with its explosive growth,” he said. “It is kind of unparalleled.”
In Southern California, about 2,000 people were ordered to evacuate because of a fire sweeping through the Sequoia National Forest. The wind-driven blaze was fed by dried, dead plants and moving fast, eating up more than 53,000 acres in four days, Andrew Freeborn of the Kern County Fire Department said.
No fatalities have been reported in the Park and Borel fires, but some people were increasing the danger for everyone by disregarding evacuation orders, 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.”
The historic mining town of Havilah and several other communities were “heavily impacted” by the fires, but it was too soon to count the burned homes, Freeborn said.
The Park Fire has destroyed at least 66 structures and damaged five others, Tracy said. Authorities initially believed 134 structures were lost, based on drone footage, but lowered the number after assessing the damage in-person, while acknowledging the figure could increase.
"Each day that number has potential to grow. Our teams obviously don’t do damage inspections when there is active fire in an area,” Tracy said.
Jerry White, 72, left his Magalia home of 50 years when authorities issued an evacuation warning. Years earlier White sustained third-degree burns and the memory 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.”
Red flag warnings were issued Monday for parts of the U.S. West, where wildfires have burned during a hot and dry summer. Fires burned across eastern Oregon and eastern Idaho, where officials were assessing damage from a group of blazes called the Gwen Fire.
