California weather will not aid firefighters battling massive blaze

CALIFORNIA - The largest wildfire in the US swelled to over 1,550 sq km on July 30, bigger than the city of Los Angeles, fire officials in California said, as thousands of firefighters battled the blaze in a wilderness area north of Sacramento.

More than 5,500 firefighters from across California and other states were working around the clock to douse the Park Fire, burning in the state’s Central Valley, about 145km north of Sacramento, the capital.

The fire grew to 156,517ha, becoming the fifth-largest wildfire in Californian history, officials said.

The Park Fire on July 30 surpassed the size of the 2020 Creek Fire in Fresno County, which burned almost 153,780ha, fire officials said.

But it is still smaller than the state’s largest fire on record, the August Complex fire of 2020, which burned more than 400,000ha in seven counties in northern California.

The Park Fire – fuelled by dry grass, brush and timber – is fast-moving, said Fire Captain Dan Collins of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, or Cal Fire.

“This fire has lots of fuel that is receptive to burning, and it’s hard to get to,” he said.

“Our fire line is 673km around, that’s the size of three Lake Tahoes. It can take two to three hours to get personnel in there over the terrain.”

The weather brings no relief for firefighting conditions, said Mr Ashton Robinson Cook, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service. No rain is in sight, and hot and extremely dry will prevail, he said.

Temperatures will reach 37.8 deg C on July 31, and highs could hover at that level until Aug 5, he said, with relative humidity dropping to as low as 7 per cent.

The Park Fire, which was only 18 per cent contained on July 30, has forced the evacuation of more than 4,000 people and destroyed or damaged more than 192 structures, fire officials said. No injuries or deaths were reported.

Cal Fire spokesman Jeremy Hollingshead said that lingering clouds of smoke have grounded the 41 helicopters used to drop water and fire retarding chemicals on the blaze.

Evacuations included Paradise, the town that was devastated by the 2018 Camp Fire, the deadliest in the state’s history.

The man charged with starting the Park Fire,

allegedly by pushing a flaming car down a Butte County gully

on July 24, was formally charged with arson on July 29, but awaits additional charges, officials said.

The man, Ronnie Dean Stout II, 42, of Chico, California, denied wrongdoing at an arraignment on July 29, said Butte County District Attorney Mike Ramsey at a news conference. It was unclear if Stout had an attorney.

Stout did not enter a plea but was denied bail. His arraignment was continued to Aug 1, as more charges could be added, Mr Ramsey said. REUTERS