California firefighters make progress as wildfires wreak havoc and spread smoke across the American West

FOREST RANCH, Calif. (AP) — Firefighters made progress and were helped by improving weather Sunday as they battled wildfires that have burned vast areas and left a trail of damage across the western United States. But further evacuations and manpower deployments were needed as thousands of firefighters battled the flames.

The so-called Park Fire, California’s largest wildfire this year, was one of more than 100 blazes burning across the U.S. on Sunday, the National Interagency Fire Center said. Some were caused by weather, as climate change increases the frequency of lightning strikes while the western U.S. grapples with scorching heat and bone-dry conditions.

The Park Fire burned an area larger than the city of Los Angeles on Sunday, darkening the sky with smoke and drawing thousands of firefighters to the scene. The blaze covered more than 562 square miles (1,455 square kilometers) of inland Northern California.

Millions of people in the northwest US and western Canada were hit with air quality warnings on Sunday.

The Park Fire began Wednesday when authorities say a man pushed a burning car into a ravine in Chico and then fled. A man accused of setting the fire was arrested Thursday and is scheduled to appear in court Monday.

Firefighters increased containment of the fire to 12% on Saturday, helped by cooler temperatures and higher humidity, officials said.

While below-average temperatures are expected through the middle of this week, that doesn’t mean existing fires will go away, said Marc Chenard, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service’s Weather Prediction Center in College Park, Maryland.

A “red flag” warning was in effect for the region on Sunday, meaning dry fuels and stronger winds increased the fire danger, the weather service said.

The National Weather Service also issued a “red flag” warning Sunday for large parts of Idaho, Montana, Utah, Colorado and Wyoming, along with parts of California.

Fires were burning in eastern Oregon and eastern Idaho, where officials were assessing damage from a cluster of fires called the Gwen Fire, estimated at 43 square miles (111 square kilometers) on Sunday.

In California, Paradise and several other communities in Butte County were forced to evacuate Sunday. Still, the southernmost front of the fire, closest to Paradise, was “looking really good,” Cal Fire operations chief Jeremy Pierce said around noon.

Officials did not expect the fire to advance farther into Chico, a city of about 100,000 just west of Paradise. Pierce said crews planned to spend the next three days extinguishing hot spots and clearing hazards.

The focus now is on saving lives and saving endangered property, but now it’s about directly fighting the fire, Jay Tracy, a spokesman for Park Fire Department headquarters, told The Associated Press by telephone Sunday.

Nearly 4,000 firefighters are battling the blaze, aided by numerous helicopters and firefighting aircraft. Reinforcements are expected to provide much-needed respite for local firefighters, some of whom have been working nonstop since Wednesday, Tracy said.

“This fire is surprising a lot of people with its explosive growth,” he said. “It’s kind of unprecedented.”

The Park Fire has been compared to the 2018 Camp Fire, which ravaged Paradise, killing 85 people and destroying 11,000 homes.

Cohasset showed remnants of the devastation on Sunday. Mailboxes and vehicles were covered in pink fire retardant dropped by planes. The shells of a washing machine and dryer were surrounded by burnt debris, and a charred motorcycle stood upright, balanced on rims after its tires apparently melted.

Another part of Cohasset remained relatively unscathed, said Butte County Fire Chief Garrett Sjolund.

“We have an unburned island in that community that we continue to patrol and make sure there are no hot spots,” Sjolund said.

Managing evacuation orders in the area is complex. Authorities were on the verge of downgrading an order to an evacuation warning for Forest Ranch when they learned that several hot spots had been reported nearby, Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea said.

“That illustrates how quickly things can change,” Honea said. “We were fully prepared to be able to ease that order and get people back in there.”

In Southern California, about 2,000 people were ordered to evacuate as a fire ripped through the Sequoia National Forest. The wind-driven blaze was fueled by dried, dead vegetation and spread quickly, consuming more than 60 square miles (155 square kilometers) in four days, said Andrew Freeborn of the Kern County Fire Department.

There were no fatalities in the Park and Borel fires, but some people increased the danger to everyone by ignoring evacuation orders, Freeborn said.

“When people ignore orders and call for help later, it distracts firefighters from the task of fighting the fires,” he said. “This fire is moving at such a pace and with such intensity that people should not think they can wait until the last minute. They should get out of the way.”

The historic mining town of Havilah and several other communities were “hard hit” by the fires, but it was too early to count the number of homes burned, Freeborn said.

The Park Fire destroyed at least 66 buildings and damaged five others, Tracy said. Authorities initially thought 134 buildings were lost, based on drone footage, but lowered that number after personally assessing the damage, while acknowledging that the number could rise.

“Every day that number can grow. Our teams obviously do not conduct damage inspections when there is active fire in an area,” Tracy said.

Jerry White, 72, left his home of 50 years in Magalia when authorities issued an evacuation warning. Years earlier, White had suffered third-degree burns, and the memory of that pain made him take the warning seriously.

“I don’t want to get burned again. It’s one of the worst pains you can go through,” White said. “I wanted to get out of here. Burns are bad.”

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Boone reported from Boise, Idaho. AP reporters from the U.S. who contributed included Eugene Garcia, David Sharp, Becky Bohrer, John Antczak, Rio Yamat, David Sharp, Holly Ramer, Sarah Brumfield, Claire Rush, Terry Chea, Scott Sonner, Martha Bellisle and Amy Hanson.