California's largest wildfire explodes in size and destroys scores of buildings

The Park fire in Butte County — the largest blaze in California this year — exploded to more than 307,000 acres by Saturday morning, with its rapid spread destroying scores of buildings and forcing more evacuations.

It is now the 12th-largest fire in state history, and still “growing by leaps and bounds,” said David Acuna, battalion chief of communication for the southern region of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

The growth of the fire over two days amid steady winds and hot temperatures has been dramatic, with its remote location making it difficult to fight. It was listed at 178,090 acres Friday afternoon, but had grown to 307,368 acres by Saturday morning. What little containment crews had Thursday — listed at 3% — has been reduced to 0%, according to the Cal Fire website.

"The Park fire continues to burn very actively, especially when aligned with slope and winds, resulting in spotting and quick fire movement," Cal Fire officials wrote in a status update, adding that the blaze "is burning in grass, brush, mixed timber and dead vegetation."

Conditions on the ground are going to continue to be a challenge, forecasters say.

The National Weather Service issued a red flag warning for the northern Sacramento Valley through late Friday, including the region where the fire is spreading. Forecasters warned that there could be wind gusts up to 30 mph pushing the blaze north combined with low humidity, which “can cause new fire starts and ongoing wildfires to ... grow rapidly and dangerously in size and intensity.”

At least 134 buildings have been confirmed destroyed, and 4,200 are threatened, according to Cal Fire.

“This fire is moving very rapidly and very quickly," said Garrett Sjolund, the fire chief for Cal Fire's Butte County unit.

Firefighters remained focused on protecting the communities around the fire Friday, including Cohasset and Forest Ranch, where about 4,000 people were evacuated. Some neighborhoods in northeast Chico were also evacuated, affecting about 400 people, along with several areas of Tehama County, authorities said.

Evacuation notices have also been extended to Shasta and Plumas counties, Acuna said. The town of Paradise - where the 2018 Camp fire burned more than 153,000 acres and killed 85 people, was also under an evacuation warning as of Friday night.

American Red Cross has set up an evacuation center at a Chico church at 2801 Notre Dame Blvd. for displaced residents who need food or a place to stay. Butte County has also set up animal shelters in Oroville.

Gov. Gavin Newsom on Friday proclaimed a state of emergency in Butte and Tehama counties because of the Park fire — as well as in Plumas County because of the Gold Complex fire , which had burned more than 3,000 acres as of Friday.

“We are using every available tool to protect lives and property as our fire and emergency response teams work around the clock to combat these challenging fires," Newsom said in a statement.

Richardson Springs, a historic resort about 10 miles north of Chico, is facing possible destruction from the fire, according to Youth With A Mission, a Christian nonprofit that uses the resort for its Chico chapter.

The area is located along Mud Creek and became well known around the late 1800s and early 1900s for its mineral water, believed to have healing powers. The Richardson brothers built a boarding house, hotel and rental cottages that soon became a resort that housed celebrities such as Errol Flynn during the filming of “The Adventures of Robin Hood” and the Detroit Tigers during offseason training, according to the nonprofit. Its hotel lobby also was featured in "Gone with the Wind."

The organization said no buildings were damaged as of Thursday morning but the area was still at “high risk,” according to the Butte County Sheriff's Office. As of Friday afternoon, Cal Fire Butte County spokesperson Rick Carhart said officials do not have any information on whether the fire has damaged buildings at Richardson Springs.

Youth With A Mission did not respond immediately to a request for comment Friday.

“We honestly don’t know what’s going on right now,” a YWAM staff member said in a Facebook video Thursday at 7:34 p.m. “This is a changing situation … a lot of shifting of the winds, so we’re not out of the woods yet by any means.”

Residents at Richardson Springs, including YWAM staff, were ordered to evacuate Wednesday at 5 p.m., according to the nonprofit's website. Since then, the fire has quickly spread north, as shown on AlertCalifornia camera footage from a tower on Richardson Springs Road. The last piece of footage from the tower was at 8:24 p.m. Wednesday and shows flames burning through a tree as it overtook the area.

The fire is burning north into the Ishi Wilderness and Lassen foothills, which experts say hasn’t seen fire activity in decades, perhaps a century.

“Once it got into that area, it had a lot of fuel to consume,” said Dan Collins, a Cal Fire spokesperson for the Butte Unit.

Zeke Lunder, a fire specialist and geographer based in Chico, agreed with Collins and said the lack of recent fires has made the area a jackpot for flames.

"A lot of us who work in fire have kind of been waiting for this fire to happen for the last 25 years," he said.

The fire also is burning near two creeks that provide critical habitat for struggling salmon. Scientists and officials said they’re concerned the fire could bring another severe blow for threatened spring-run chinook salmon, which typically spend the summer in Deer Creek and Mill Creek before spawning in the fall.

“It's a very serious threat, depending on how this fire proceeds,” said Andrew Rypel, a professor of fish ecology and director of UC Davis’ Center for Watershed Sciences.

Even before the fire, biologists were so alarmed about a recent crash in the spring-run salmon population that last year they began capturing juvenile fish from Deer Creek to breed them in captivity.

Rypel said a large fire like this one could seriously harm water quality to a point that would kill fish.

“There was a very, very high amount of concern about these populations independent of the fire. And now you have a significant local threat which is very hard to control,” Rypel said.

On Thursday, authorities announced they had arrested 42-year-old Ronnie Dean Stout II, a Chico resident, on suspicion of arson. Prosecutors said the man pushed a burning car into a gully, starting the fast-moving fire.

“It is maddening that we’re here again, and it is particularly maddening that this particular fire was caused by an individual," Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea said. “During this particular time of year, we are under a very high threat for fire."

The Park fire was one of several burning in California:

• A fast-moving fire near Lake Elsinore on Thursday temporarily forced the evacuation of dozens of homes. The 145-acre Macy fire broke out in vegetation around 5:40 p.m. and was 60% contained as of Friday evening.
• The Flynn fire temporarily closed Interstate 580 in Altamont in Alameda County and burned more than 500 acres. It is 80% contained.
• In Contra Costa County, firefighters were battling a 200-acre blaze called the Point fire in the Bay Point community.

Sjolund, the fire chief in Butte County, said he's hopeful an expected drop in temperatures this weekend could assist in fighting the Park fire and others across the region.

“It’s kind of a moving target with the way the weather patterns are coming in," he said.

Times staff writers Joseph Serna, Suhauna Hussain and Luke Money contributed to this report.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times .