California’s largest wildfire explodes in size as fires rage across U.S. West

California's largest active fire grows rapidly, threatening homes as firefighters scramble to meet the danger.

California's largest active fire exploded in size on July 26 evening, growing rapidly amid bone-dry fuel and threatening thousands of homes as fire-fighters scrambled to meet the danger.

The Park Fire's intensity and dramatic spread led fire officials to make unwelcome comparisons to the monstrous Camp Fire, which burned out of control in nearby Paradise in 2018, killing 85 people and torching 11,000 homes.

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More than 130 structures have been destroyed by this fire so far, and thousands more are threatened as evacuations were ordered in four counties: Butte, Plumas, Tehama and Shasta. It stood at 1,243 sqkm (480 square miles) on July 26 and was moving quickly north and east after igniting on Wednesday when authorities said a man pushed a burning car into a gully in Chico and then calmly blended in with others fleeing the scene.

“There’s a tremendous amount of fuel out there and it’s going to continue with this rapid pace," Cal Fire incident commander Billy See said at a briefing. He said the fire was advancing up to 21 sqkm (8 square miles) an hour on Friday afternoon.

Officials at Lassen Volcanic National Park evacuated staff from Mineral, a community of about 120 people where the park headquarters are located, as the fire moved north toward Highway 36 and east toward the park.

Communities elsewhere in the U.S. West and Canada were under siege on Friday, from a fast-moving blaze sparked by lightning sent people fleeing on fire-ringed roads in rural Idaho to a new blaze that was causing evacuations in eastern Washington.