California’s Park Fire triples in size. More evacuated as blaze destroys at least 134 homes
The Park Fire, raging in Butte and Tehama counties, continued to chew through the Northern California wilderness Friday, tripling in size since Wednesday night to 164,286 acres as more than 1,600 personnel battled flames amid tinder-dry and blistering conditions.
“The Park Fire continues to burn very actively, especially when aligned with slope and winds, resulting in spotting and quick fire movement,” Cal Fire, in unified command with the Butte County Fire Department and U.S. Forest Service, said in its latest update. The fire was progressing through territory at a rate of 5,000 acres an hour. Containment has declined from 3% to zero.
The focus for firefighters remains structure protection after the blaze, which started when a man allegedly pushed a flaming car down a gully Wednesday afternoon. The fire has burned over hamlets, including Cohasset and Richardson Springs, and is racing through the region’s brushy, wooded vegetation.
Northeast of Chico, it has destroyed at least 134 homes, according to initial estimates by Cal Fire. Assessing homes in the sparsely populated foothills will take time, authorities said in a Thursday evening briefing.
“We have numerous structures that have been destroyed, and we’re working to get an accurate number to share with you,” Collins said. “To the citizens of Cohasset and Forest Ranch, we realize being evacuated is difficult, stressful and challenging for you. We are working our hardest to protect your communities and appreciate your support and patience.”
More than 4,000 residents in Butte and Tehama counties remain under evacuation orders as the fire burns north into the Ishi Wilderness in Tehama while crews work to protect parts of Forest Ranch, a community of about 1,200 people that sits along Highway 32 and has been threatened by the fast-moving, wind-whipped fire since Wednesday evening.
Park Fire map
Sources: U.S. Department of the Interior, IRWIN, FIRIS, NIFC, NASA, NOAA and Esri
The Butte County Sheriff’s Office ordered residents of Forest Ranch to evacuate Friday morning in zones 260 to 273. Voluntary evacuation warnings have also gone up in Magalia and Paradise, two areas hit hard by the Camp Fire, which killed 85 people and left 153,336 acres in cinders over two weeks. The Camp Fire is the state’s deadliest and most destructive ever.
On the northern flank, firefighters said Friday they were concerned the fire could move into two more counties: Shasta and Lassen.
A red flag warning remains in effect for the burn area and most of the upper Sacramento Valley until 11 p.m. Friday.
A contingent of 200 or so firefighters, augmented by fixed-wing air tankers and helicopters, has been reinforced with a total of 1,633 personnel battling the fire across an area of 256 square miles, two and a half times the size of Sacramento. The fire quickly became the state’s largest of the year and is now four times the size of 2024’s second-largest blaze, the Lake Fire in Santa Barbara County.
The flames, visible from space, have created smoke plumes that southerly winds have pushed into Great Basin states.
“As the fire grew, additional resources were ordered,” said Cal Fire spokesman Capt. Dan Collins, who added that despite the influx of manpower, “the fire quickly began to outpace our resources because of the dry fuels, the hot weather the low humidities and the wind.”
Authorities said at least two firefighters on the front line have been treated for minor injuries.
While the head of the fire was charging “aggressively” into the Ishi Wilderness, a sprawling but desolate part of the Lassen National Forest and well south of Mount Lassen, fire officials remained concerned about new growth on the fire’s southeastern flank. Those flames, fire officials said, could easily race unabated toward more populated areas, including over areas decimated by the 2018 Camp Fire.
At a news conference Thursday, Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea expressed frustration that many residents were not complying with the instruction to leave. He referred to the death toll of the 2018 Camp Fire, and said, “I don’t know how to keep saying this over and over again. People have got to know their zones. … In addition to that, you have to be prepared to go.”
Honea said that, in the evacuation zone in the community of Cohasset on Wednesday night, he encountered “numerous people who were not prepared to go,” including three whose cars were out of gas. On Thursday, the fire swept through Cohasset.
Cal Fire lists the official cause of the Park Fire as arson.
The Bay Area News Group contributed to this story.
