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Lightning and a burning car pushed into a gully are blamed for wildfires in the West
Flames consume a building as the Park Fire tears through the Cohasset community in Butte County, Calif., on Thursday.
Noah Berger/AP
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Noah Berger/AP
A burning car pushed into a gully sparked California’s largest wildfire of the year, authorities said Thursday as they announced the arrest of a suspect. Meanwhile other blazes scorched the Pacific Northwest.
Flames from the fire the man is accused of starting exploded into what is now the Park Fire, which has burned more than 195 square miles (505 square km) near the city of Chico. Evacuations were ordered in Butte and Tehama counties, with the blaze only 3% contained by Thursday evening.
California authorities did not immediately name the man they arrested.
Also in California near the Nevada line, about 1,000 people remained displaced from their homes Thursday after evacuations were ordered Monday night when lightning sparked the Gold Complex fires that have burned more than 4 square miles (10 square km) of brush and timber in the Plumas National Forest about 50 miles (80 km) northwest of Reno, Forest Service spokeswoman Adrienne Freeman said.
There have been no reports of structure damage, deaths or serious injuries at the Gold Complex of fires southwest of Portola near the Nevada line. But they still had zero containment Thursday.
“We’ve made some really good progress on the fires,” Forest Service operations section chief Tom Browning said Thursday afternoon. “But it’s hot, it’s dry and it’s very windy … With the wind and the heat, we don’t have great containment on all these lines.”
Tim Fike, Forest Service incident commander at the Gold Complex, said gusty winds were plaguing crews at the Park Fire as well, causing new spot fires up to a mile beyond the main fire lines.
“That’s been a big, big problem on the Park Fire right now,” Fike said.
As evacuations continued in California, some Oregon residents were cleared to return home after a thunderstorm dropped welcome rain but also potentially dangerous lightning on the biggest active blaze in the United States. More than two dozen new fires started in Montana on Wednesday and early Thursday, and another fast-moving blaze forced thousands to abandon a town in Canada.
In eastern Oregon, evacuation orders were lifted for the city of Huntington, population 500, after a severe thunderstorm late Wednesday brought some rain and cooler temperatures to the nearly 630 square miles (1,630 square kilometers) burned by the Durkee Fire — the nation’s biggest — and another nearby blaze.
President Joe Biden called Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek on Thursday night and offered his support to ensure the state has everything it needs to fight the fires, the White House said.
Baker County Sheriff Travis Ash called the rain a “godsend,” and the Oregon State Fire Marshal said firefighters were set to “seize the opportunity” of better conditions to push back the fire on the Oregon-Idaho border. It remained unpredictable and was just 20% contained, according to the government website InciWeb.
Lightning strikes started 15 new fires overnight in Idaho, the U.S. Forest Service told Boise’s KBOI-TV, but several had already been extinguished by Thursday afternoon. More than 2,800 cloud-to-ground lightning strikes were detected across southeast Oregon and Idaho on Wednesday alone, the National Weather Service in Boise said.
Overall, nearly 1,562 square miles (4,045 square kilometers) have burned so far this summer in the Pacific Northwest. Oregon alone has 34 large fires, almost all of them in the central or eastern part of the state.
Climate change is increasing the frequency of wildfires sparked by lightning across the Pacific Northwest and western Canada as the region endures recording-breaking heat, with many triple-digit days and bone-dry conditions. Idaho Power has for the first time instituted a pre-emptive power outage, shutting off electricity to thousands of customers to prevent new fire starts and other power grid issues from wires downed by the high winds, the utility said.
In northern California, fire personnel were focusing on evacuations and defending structures while using bulldozers to build containment lines ahead of the Park Fire. No deaths or damage to structures had been reported, CAL FIRE/ Butte County Fire Department said.
A fire in southern California was much smaller, but moving fast and threatening homes.
Evacuation orders were in effect Wednesday night in San Diego County after a wildfire began to spread fast near the border with Riverside County. Fire officials said the Grove Fire was heading southeast through steep and challenging terrain. The fire grew to 1.4 square miles (3.6 square kilometers) overnight and was 10% contained by Thursday afternoon.
In Montana, a fire warning was in effect in the central part of the state because of high temperatures, low humidity and strong winds. An extreme heat warning east of the storm front meant temperatures could soar up to 108 degrees Fahrenheit (42 degrees Celsius). After hurricane-force winds toppled trees, downed power lines and damaged gas lines in the Missoula area, authorities urged people to stay out of rivers because they might be electrified.
In the Canadian Rockies’ Jasper National Park, a fast-moving wildfire this week hit the park’s namesake town, forcing thousands to flee and causing significant damage in the World Heritage Site. That blaze, like those in the Western United States, led to some air quality alerts or advisories as skies filled with smoke and haze.
Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a State of Emergency Saturday night as plumes of black smoke continue to rise from the Lineage Logistics warehouse fire, still burning on the 1400 block of South Los Palos Street in Boyle Heights.
The fire started inside a freezer area at the cold storage facility Wednesday afternoon and was initially extinguished before reigniting on Thursday, according to officials.
Newsom’s declaration allows the state to use additional funding for firefighting efforts, public health services and disaster recovery as Los Angeles continues to deal with the emergency.
“California is mobilizing to support Los Angeles as firefighters and emergency personnel continue their work to contain this fire and protect surrounding communities,” Newsom said in a statement Saturday. “While local officials continue to lead this response, the State of California is prepared to help safeguard public health, support emergency operations, and assist impacted residents. We are coordinating closely with our local partners, deploying specialized expertise, and pre-positioning critical supplies so communities have the support they need both now and throughout recovery.”
Although local officials have not asked for additional state resources at this time, Newsom preemptively made the declaration to provide the region with resources as soon as they are needed, California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services Director Caroline Thomas Jacobs said.
“Cal OES is working side-by-side with the City and County of Los Angeles and our regional partners to ensure they have the resources, information, and support necessary to respond to this incident,” Jacobs said. “The State of Emergency allows us to further streamline coordination efforts and leverage additional state capabilities as needed. Our focus remains on protecting communities and supporting locally led response operations.”
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Smoke from Boyle Heights warehouse fire continues to blow over downtown Los Angeles on Saturday, June 20, 2026. (KTLA) -
A massive plume of toxic smoke is seen rising from a Boyle Heights cold storage facility fire on Wednesday, June 17, 2026. (KTLA) -
Crews work a warehouse fire in the Boyle Heights section of Los Angeles on Wednesday, June 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)
Resources available to Los Angeles following the declaration include:
- 5.5 million N95 respirator masks available for distribution to impacted communities.
- Commercial-grade air purifiers available for deployment to evacuation centers, community facilities, and other public spaces.
- Bottled water and other emergency supplies available through the state’s logistics network.
- Enhanced air quality monitoring and technical support resources.
Cal OES Fire and Rescue Branch leaders with specialized technical expertise are also available to consult L.A. fire officials on how to deal with the warehouse fire, if necessary. The state provided similar expertise to officials during the chemical tank failure in Garden Grove.
Air quality remains unhealthy in parts of Los Angeles due to the large amount of smoke produced by the fire.
“The warehouse fire has produced significant smoke and particulate matter that may affect air quality in surrounding neighborhoods,” the governor’s office stated. “To support public health monitoring efforts, the California Air Resources Board is coordinating with local and regional partners to ensure access to air quality information and technical expertise. State agencies continue to monitor conditions and stand ready to deploy additional monitoring resources if requested.”
The exterior of the Robert F. Kennedy Department of Justice building is pictured on May 4, 2021, in Washington, D.C.
Patrick Semansky/AP
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Patrick Semansky/AP
The Justice Department released a memo this week that quietly calls into question decades of civil rights protections for Americans with disabilities and stirred fear and anger among advocates and families.
The memo, an opinion from the Office of Legal Counsel, argues that states do not have to provide in-home or community-based care to people with disabilities who need support. These services allow many disabled Americans to continue to live, learn and work at home or in their own communities, among family and friends.
“It is now the position of the United States government that people with disabilities don’t have a right to be part of their communities,” says Alison Barkoff, a health law and policy professor at George Washington University who led disability law and policy efforts during both the Obama and Biden administrations. “I can’t overstate how significant this change in position is.“
Without the federal government requiring that states provide these services – to help disabled people integrate into their communities – advocates and legal experts warn that cash-strapped states could cut them and return to what was once common practice: de facto segregation of Americans with disabilities in nursing homes and large institutions.
Pushback from the disability community was swift.
“As America prepares to celebrate 250 years of independence, [this memo] threatens to drag our nation back to a dark and shameful era of ignorance and cruelty,” said the American Association of People with Disabilities. “This interpretation will open the doors for states to revert to warehousing people with disabilities out of sight and out of mind in institutions.”
“This opinion is a direct threat to decades of progress toward community living for people with disabilities,” said Shira Wakschlag of The Arc of the United States, a nonprofit disability advocacy group. “People with disabilities shouldn’t be forced into institutions because a state refuses to provide services in the community.”
The Justice Department did not respond to an NPR request that it explain its position as well as why it is changing course after decades of legal and bipartisan support for community services.
What the law says
This new memo calls into question what legal experts say has been settled law for decades.
Both Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act and Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act have long been interpreted to require that states provide services to Americans with disabilities in the most integrated setting appropriate. In short: Institutionalization should be a last resort.
In 1999, a case testing these protections made it to the U.S. Supreme Court. In Olmstead v. L.C., two women with mental disabilities sued Georgia, arguing that the state had failed its obligation to provide services that would allow them to return to their communities and that it had continued to institutionalize the women instead, thus violating their civil rights.
The court agreed that states have a legal responsibility to provide support that integrates disabled Americans into their communities, and for nearly three decades, courts across the country have embraced that interpretation.
By 2023, 8.4 million Americans were receiving home- and community-based services through Medicaid.
The new memo, written by Lanora Pettit, principal deputy assistant attorney general in the Office of Legal Counsel, argues that, while federal law prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability, it does not impose an “integration mandate” on states to provide these community services.
What’s more, the memo argues, the Supreme Court’s Olmstead decision “held only that a state cannot institutionalize such patients without justification.”
But, the memo adds: “What counts as adequate justification remains an open question.”
At one point, Pettit acknowledges the novelty of this reading: “We recognize that this view of Olmstead‘s import is out of step with the common understanding of that decision within the federal courts.”
Why it matters
“The United States government since 1977 has taken the position that [federal law] includes an integration mandate that requires services to be provided in the most integrated setting appropriate,” says professor Barkoff, who worked in the Obama Justice Department leading its Olmstead enforcement efforts.
For decades, Barkoff adds, both Republican and Democratic administrations, including the first Trump administration, proactively enforced federal disability law and repeatedly brought actions against states that relied too heavily on care in large, segregated settings that the law says should be a last resort.
The courts and Congress decided institutionalization should be a last resort because people’s personal liberty is at stake, says Jennifer Mathis of the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law: “Who you can see, when you can go out, when you eat, what you eat. Who your roommate is, who you talk to, what your environment is. And for so many people who are institutionalized, their life is literally a hallway. I have been on those hallways with people. It is deadening.“
This memo signifies a dramatic change in the U.S. government’s official position.
“We are incredibly concerned that the message coming from the federal government in this memo is, ‘It’s fine to go back to the days that people were placed in institutions,’ even though they can be served in the community, even though they want to be and even though it’s more cost-effective,” Barkoff says.
The timing matters too. The memo arrives as a new case, Texas v. Kennedy, is making its way through the courts. The case, brought by Texas and several other states, is essentially a fresh challenge to the integration mandate on states.
With this memo, the federal government is aligning itself with the plaintiffs in the case. Though Mathis cautions: “It’s important to understand that [this memo] is not the law, that the Justice Department can’t change the law. Congress makes laws, not agencies.“
For now, it’s not clear what the immediate impact of the memo will be, though it seems the Justice Department will stop its enforcement efforts around Olmstead.
Why now?
The Justice Department memo appears to be the latest salvo in a broader effort that began on July 24, 2025, when President Trump issued an executive order intended to make it easier for state and local governments to police homelessness.
“Endemic vagrancy, disorderly behavior, sudden confrontations, and violent attacks have made our cities unsafe,” the order argues, going on to claim that “the overwhelming majority of these individuals are addicted to drugs, have a mental health condition, or both.”
The administration’s solution: Involuntary institutionalization. “Shifting homeless individuals into long-term institutional settings for humane treatment through the appropriate use of civil commitment will restore public order,” the order reads.
In a 2023 campaign video, President Trump himself pledged: “For those who are severely mentally ill and deeply disturbed, we will bring them back to mental institutions, where they belong.”
A conservative Texas think tank, the Cicero Institute, has been a driving force behind recent efforts to forcefully combat homelessness, including through institutionalization.
One serious obstacle to large-scale institutionalization of the unhoused is federal disability law that has long required home- or community-based services instead, when appropriate. A footnote in the Justice Department’s new memo appears to suggest these laws have contributed to the rise in chronic homelessness.
To the contrary, Barkoff says, the Olmstead decision “has been one of the most effective tools in providing services and stable housing to people who are homeless.”
NPR has previously reported that the Trump administration’s push for institutionalization faces another big obstacle: An acute shortage of beds at these specialized facilities.
The memo arrives as Republicans have also passed deep cuts to Medicaid, which is the primary source of funding for community-based services many disabled Americans rely on.
Multiple legal experts tell NPR that, in response to last year’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, states must now make deep cuts to a whole range of services previously funded by Medicaid. The Trump administration’s memo, they add, essentially gives states permission to cut these localized supports and, instead, rely on institutionalization – even though research shows the latter is considerably more expensive for states to provide.
This comes as disability advocates were already pushing back against the Trump administration’s announcement on Tuesday that it would move federal administration of special education programs out of the Department of Education and into the Department of Health and Human Services – a change that, as with the new Justice Department memo, raised fears of a rollback of the enforcement of longstanding civil rights protections.
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