Crews struggle to contain rapidly spreading Park Fire in California

An especially active fire season is exacting a huge toll across several Western states. In California, more than 5,800 personnel, 500 fire trucks and 40 helicopters are battling a fire larger than all of Los Angeles. The Park Fire, as it’s known, is the country’s largest and has ballooned to historic proportions in just over a week. Stephanie Sy reports.

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Geoff Bennett: An especially active fire season is exacting a huge toll across several Western states.

A series of fires have turned deadly in Colorado, where at least one person was found dead. In California, more than 5,800 personnel, 500 fire trucks and 40 helicopters are battling a fire that’s larger than all of Los Angeles. The Park Fire, as it’s known, is the country’s largest and has ballooned to historic proportions in just over a week.

Stephanie Sy has the latest.

Stephanie Sy: This is the view for firefighters on the front lines of California’s Park Fire. The blaze, believed to be started by a local man’s burning car, is now the fifth largest in state history.

Sergio Arellano, Cal Fire: I have not personally seen a fire grow so fast in such a short amount of time.

Stephanie Sy: In just a week, nearly 400,000 acres burned across four counties, forcing thousands of evacuations and destroying hundreds of structures.

In rural Cohasset, California, Dave Tehan and his son Jonathan are both members of the county fire department. While they battle to protect their town, their own homes were lost to the flames.

Dave Tehan, Volunteer Firefighter: I feel luckier than some of the people here, because we do have a few things, not very much, but a few things to hold in our hands that survived. The friends from — that I have known for so many years have just stepped up and shown so much support. I feel rich in that.

Stephanie Sy: Kristy Michael Daneau also live in Cohasset. They lost their house to another fast-moving fire six years ago in Paradise, California. Now this is all that remains of the home where they rebuilt their lives. They had no fire insurance.

Kristy Daneau, Wildfire Evacuee: The most important things I grabbed was me and my brother and sister have my mom’s ashes, along with my dad. And so I was able to grab a few little pictures and her ashes.

Stephanie Sy: The Park Fire’s explosive expansion is nearly unprecedented, says UCLA climate scientist Daniel Swain.

Daniel Swain, Climate Scientist, UCLA: This is definitely a top-tier event in terms of how quickly it moved across the landscape in those initial days, some of the vastest rates of spread over that initial 24-to-48 hour period that we have seen on a wildfire in this part of the world.

Stephanie Sy: Nearly 100 fires are currently burning across the West and 4.5 million acres have already burned this year, about a million above average.

This week, multiple blazes broke out across Colorado’s Front Range, killing at least one person and forcing residents to flee their homes near Denver. Governor Jared Polis has now activated the National Guard to assist with logistics.

Meanwhile, in Oregon, crews are stretched thin, battling more than 30 separate fires.

Don Cape, Oregon Resident: I have lived here all my life and never, never seen it this way.

Stephanie Sy: To make matters worse, another brutal heat wave is forecast to turn up the temperature this weekend, a dynamic that Swain says continues to drive the intensity of this year’s fire season.

Daniel Swain: It has become a very active season. And a big part of the reason for this is that nearly the entire western half of the country as well, as the western half of Canada, have experienced, much like California has, record-breaking heat in recent weeks over a very long and sustained period.

So all of that extra heat, even following what was a relatively wet winter in some places, has really dried out the vegetation, in some cases to near-record dry levels.

Stephanie Sy: And that means there’s plenty of fuel for the fires yet to burn.

For the PBS “News Hour,” I’m Stephanie Sy.