California Wildfire Grows to 575 Square Miles, Destroying at Least 100 Structures

At least 100 structures have been destroyed and roughly 4,200 more are being threatened by the Park Fire, near Chico, California, which has burned 368,256 acres and now touches four counties.

Containment on the Park Fire, which has 4,742 fighting personnel assigned to it, grew from 3% before the weekend to 12% on Monday. It is now the nation’s largest active wildfire and the seventh largest in California history at 575 square miles.

“During the rapid growth of the Park Fire over the last two days, the fire spread quickly through the Ishi Wilderness in the Lassen National Forest,” a CalFire update states. “The cooler temperatures this morning moderated the fire behavior, allowing fire crews the opportunity to actively combat the fire outside of the National Forest lands. This proactive approach aims to safeguard the communities and ecological and cultural resources that may be at risk from the fire.”

The fire is burning in Butte County where is started, growing to 53,356 acres, and has spread to Tehama County, where is has burned 306,785 acres. It is also now burning in Plumas and Shasta counties.

The Park Fire started on Wednesday. A Chico man accused of setting the fire by pushing a flaming vehicle into a grassy area was arrested last week.

Evacuation orders and warnings are still in place for several affected areas.

Other large fires burning in California include the 2024 SQF Lightning Complex fire in Tulare, which is 82,699 acres and is 33% contained, the Lake Fire in Santa Barbara County (38,664 acres and 92% contained), and the Shelly Fire in Siskiyou County (15,537 acres and 89% contained).

The 2024 SQF Lightning Complex Fire is also known as the Borel Fire. The Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Region 9 Administrator authorized the use of federal funds to assist the state of California in combating the fire.

The state submitted a request for a Fire Management Assistance Grant, with the fire threatening roughly 4,000 homes in multiple communities throughout Kern County at the time of the request last week.

This month has been active for wildfires. A CalFire official said at the begging of July said this season so far looks to be another challenging one for the state.

According to CalFire, 4,521 wildfires have burned 687,191 acres so far this year, and 264 structures have been reported damaged or destroyed.

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