Firefighters on Sunday made some progress against the massive Park fire burning in Butte, Plumas, Shasta and Tehama counties — California’s largest wildfire of the year and the state’s seventh-largest fire on record.
The 353,194-acre blaze was 12% contained owing largely to a brief break in hot, dry weather conditions, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. But crews face an uphill battle with higher temperatures and lower humidity on the horizon as the fire continues to burn in heavy vegetation.
“We’re kind of at the mercy of the weather, the fuel and the topography — those are the three driving factors of any fire,” said Jay Tracy, a spokesperson for the incident.
The explosive wildfire ignited Wednesday afternoon after a man pushed a burning car into a gully near Chico in what authorities say was an act of arson. Thousands of people have been evacuated from their homes, and at least 66 structures have been destroyed and 4,200 remain threatened.
Flames burn as the Park fire jumps Highway 36 near Paynes Creek in Tehama County on Friday.
(Noah Berger / Associated Press)
Nearly 4,000 firefighters are attacking the blaze from the air and ground, Tracy said. But the fire is burning in steep, jagged terrain that is proving difficult to access — including areas such as the Ishi Wilderness that haven’t burned in decades and so are overgrown and rife for fire, Tracy said.
“There’s not any infrastructure in there that would have the roads and the access points that we need,” he added.
The fire is largely crawling in a northward direction, where communities such as Paynes Creek remain a top concern. Fortunately, many of the homes and neighborhoods in the area are spread out and not densely populated, which has so far allowed crews to keep property damage and other tolls to a relative minimum, Tracy said.
Another community of concern — Cohasset on the fire’s southern perimeter — has…