California blaze multiplies in size, forces thousands to evacuate

A California wildfire has rapidly expanded, forcing thousands of residents to flee in an area that was devastated by the state’s deadliest wildfire six years earlier.

The Park Fire continued to burn in northern California on Saturday, with hope that cooler weather could help calm its spread.

Still, as of late Friday, the blaze was “expanding 4,000 to 5,000 acres an hour, incident commander Billy See told a news conference, and was “zero percent” controlled.

“There’s a tremendous amount of fuel out there and it’s going to continue with this rapid pace,” See said.

A total of 4,000 people have evacuated the towns of Cohasset and Forest Ranch, plus an additional 400 from the small city of Chico.

At least 134 structures had so far been destroyed by the fire since it was ignited on Wednesday when authorities said a man pushed a burning car into a gully in Chico.

The fire sprawled more than 307,000 acres (124,000 hectares) on Saturday and was moving quickly north and east, authorities said. An alert tower camera also captured a twisting vortex of smoke and fire rising into the sky, dubbed by some a “firenado”.

About 1,700 firefighters were responding to the blaze, which quickly became one of the largest in the state’s history.

Many of those evacuated are from Butte County, where the monstrous 2018 Camp Fire devastated the town of Paradise, killing 85 people and destroying 11,000 homes.

Paradise has been placed under evacuation warning, but residents had not yet been ordered to leave as of Friday.

“You have to be prepared to go,” Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea warned area residents.

“This county has seen time and time again where people have waited too long and they have lost their lives,” he added.

In Chico, California, Carli Parker was one of hundreds who fled their homes as the Park Fire encroached. She told The Associated Press news agency she had previously been forced out of two homes by fire and she had little hope her residence would remain unscathed.

“I think I felt like I was in danger because the police had come to our house because we had signed up for early evacuation warnings, and they were running to their vehicle after telling us that we need to self-evacuate and they wouldn’t come back,” said Parker, a mother of five.

The National Interagency Fire Center said as of Friday 111 wildfires were burning in the US, the vast majority in the West. Hundreds of fires were also burning north of the US border in Canada, where a blaze has devastated parts of Jasper National Park.

Climate scientists blame longer and more intense wildfire seasons on human-caused climate change. Warmer temperatures create drying conditions to fuel fires and are accompanied by more instances of lightning.

Earlier this week, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres appealed for global cooperation to respond to an “an extreme heat epidemic”.