California’s largest wildfire of year grows as thousands ordered to evacuate

The largest wildfire that California has seen this year grew again overnight, as thousands of residents remained under evacuation orders on Friday, and numerous structures have been destroyed as people flee flames licking above the tree line.

As of Friday morning, the fire, known as the Park fire and described as particularly aggressive, has burned more than 160,000 acres over Butte and Tehama counties in the north of the state in two days, officials say, and was only 3% contained.

During a press conference on Thursday, local officials from Butte county said that there had been two minor injuries due to the fire, and said that numerous structures had been destroyed. Videos from local news agencies show entire landscapes, homes and cars engulfed by flames and smoke, while people rush to flee the area.

Officials say the fire started on Wednesday. A 42-year-old California man was arrested on Thursday and accused of starting the fire by pushing a burning car into a gully.

The car went down an embankment approximately 60ft, officials said, and burned completely, spreading flames that caused the Park fire.

“The fire quickly began to outpace our resources because of the dry fuels, the hot weather, the low humidities and the wind” said the Butte county fire chief, Garrett Sjolund.

Evacuation orders were issued in parts of those counties, and the sheriff of Butte county, Kory Honea, said in the news conference on Thursday that approximately 4,000 residents, including in the communities of Cohasset and Forest Ranch and other areas in north-east Chico, had so far been impacted by the evacuation orders.

More than 1,000 personnel are working to contain the flames, officials said.

“It is maddening that we are here again” Honea said. “And it is particularly maddening that this particular fire was caused by an individual.”

Firefighters across North America are working intensively to contain other wildfires across the region, including in Washington, Oregon and other states, as well as parts of Canada, as heatwaves reaching record-breaking temperatures continue.

The Durkee fire in Oregon, which started on 17 July and quickly became the largest active fire in the US, was 20% contained as of Thursday night, per officials. It has so far burned more than 280,000 acres.

As of Friday morning, parts of California, Oregon, Montana, Nebraska and Idaho remained under the National Weather Service’s red flag warning, meaning that critical fire weather conditions are either occurring now, or will shortly.

Air quality alerts are in effect in areas of Arizona, Washington, Idaho, Oregon and Nebraska due to wildfire smoke. Parts of Colorado saw wildfire smoke in their skies this week, but conditions appear to have improved as of Friday.

The National Weather Service has also issued fire weather watch warnings –meaning that there is a potential for critical fire weather conditions – for areas of Utah beginning on Saturday.

As of Thursday morning, the National Interagency Fire Center had reported 89 large active wildfires that were being managed across the country. The fires had, by Thursday, burned more than 1.6m acres, with many of the fires in the north-west of the US exhibiting “extreme fire behavior”.