Park Fire in California Grows Dramatically, Becoming Largest Active Blaze in U.S.

The Park fire in Northern California has grown considerably to become the largest active blaze in the country, as firefighters raced Saturday to contain scores of blazes across the West.

Federal officials say active fires have burned more than 2 million acres. With smoke darkening the skies, authorities in California and Oregon refined evacuation zones and urged people to be prepared to flee with little notice. Already this past week, thousands of people have been told to evacuate, and the smoke has prompted air quality alerts across the Pacific Northwest and Mountain West.

The sprawling fire in California has expanded rapidly to more than 350,000 acres in Butte, Tehama and Shasta counties, near Chico, fire officials said. They added that the fire was expanding by as much as 5,000 acres per hour.

The blaze, which is also among the largest in the state’s history, was still zero percent contained Saturday , but Cal Fire expects that the cooler temperatures and higher humidity forecast for the day will aid firefighters. The number of firefighters and other personnel working to contain the Park fire nearly tripled to about 2,500 since yesterday, officials said.

“This is the best day as far as weather conditions that we’re going to experience this week,” Scott Weese, a Cal Fire official, said at a briefing with firefighters Saturday.

But officials predicted the fire would continue to grow, and they did not have an estimate for when it may start to be contained.

The wildfire’s growth prompted a new wave of evacuation orders and warnings, with about 8,700 people under such orders Saturday, according to Cal Fire. In Paradise, which was almost completely destroyed by the Camp fire in 2018, officials issued an evacuation warning for the entire town Friday night.

Lassen Volcanic National Park was closed and evacuated, officials announced Saturday, as the fire approached the western part of the park, which is about 90 miles north of Chico.

Oregon was also contending with fires. The Durkee fire, which has unleashed havoc in a sparsely populated region close to the Idaho border since a lightning strike July 17, was covering at least 288,000 acres. To the southwest, in the Malheur National Forest, the Falls fire has claimed over 140,000 acres. And the Lone Rock fire has raced across more than 136,000 acres since it started July 13 near Condon.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times .