Man accused of starting California’s Park Fire is arrested as Oregon battles massive blaze

By Dalia Faheid, Robert Shackelford, Lauren Mascarenhas and Cheri Mossburg, CNN

(CNN) — The largest active wildfire in the United States has scorched almost 270,000 acres in eastern Oregon, as nearly 80 large active wildfires are burning in the US, including a California blaze that exploded in size overnight. Here’s the latest:

• California battles northern blaze: The Park Fire in California has exploded to nearly 125,00 acres and is 3% contained, according to CalFire. A suspect has been arrested after being identified pushing a car engulfed in fire 60 feet into a gully, “spreading flames that caused the Park Fire,” the Butte County District Attorney’s Office announced Thursday afternoon. The blaze has forced mandatory evacuations in Butte County, where the state’s deadliest wildfire, the Camp Fire, killed more than 80 people in 2018.

• Oregon fire is 20% contained: The Durkee Fire, which has burned an area larger than the city of Indianapolis, started on July 17 near the Oregon-Idaho state line. Amid high temperatures, extremely dry vegetation and strong winds, the fire has grown tens of thousands of acres since Sunday and is 20% contained as of Thursday afternoon, according to InciWeb.

• Durkee Fire threatens nearby communities: Three people were injured and two homes and 12 other structures were destroyed as the fire spread, according to the Oregon Department of Emergency Management. Officials have asked some residents to evacuate. Some communities do not have power, according to Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek, who has deployed resources from the National Guard to assist.

• Two fires threaten national park in Canada: The flames closing in on the nation’s largest national park from two directions sent visitors and residents fleeing the town of Jasper in Alberta, where buildings are burned. Officials say the losses are significant, and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has deployed federal support to help battle the blaze.

California wildfire explodes in size overnight

A 42-year-old man, identified as Ronnie Dean Stout II, has been arrested after witnesses reported seeing someone “pushing a car that was on fire into a gully near the Alligator Hole in upper Bidwell Park shortly before 3:00 p.m. yesterday,” according to Butte County District Attorney Mike Ramsey. “The car went down an embankment approximately 60 feet and burned completely, spreading flames that caused the Park Fire.”

The DA says the man was seen “calmly leaving the area by blending in with the other citizens who were in the area and fleeing the rapidly evolving fire.”

Stout was arrested at a mobile home park in Chico, California, around 2 a.m., Ramsey said.

He has two previous strikes in California, including a 2001 conviction in Butte County for lewd acts on a child under 14, and another in 2002 in Kern County for robbery with great bodily injury, when he was sentenced to 20 years in prison, Ramsey added. In California, people with two prior strikes – convictions of violent or serious felonies – receive significantly longer prison sentences if convicted of a third felony.

Prison records were not immediately available but CNN reached out to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation for more information.

The suspect is being held without bail pending his arraignment, which is set for Monday, according to the DA’s office.

Stout will likely face an arson charge, though it is unclear what count, or whether any enhancements will be added, Ramsey said.  The DA’s office told CNN Stout has not retained an attorney and will be assigned a public defender at his arraignment.

Triple-digit temperatures and high wind gusts have fueled the fire’s growth.

Some residents in Butte County were asked to evacuate, as the fire grew to nearly 40,000 acres overnight to an area roughly the size of Washington, DC. By Thursday morning, the fire had burned an average of nearly 50 football fields per minute since it started Wednesday afternoon. Triple-digit temperatures and high wind gusts have fueled its growth.

There are more than 200 firefighters deployed to fight the blaze, according to CalFire.

Oregon fires ‘scaled up quickly’

The lightning-sparked Durkee Fire is the largest of 31 large wildfires currently burning across Oregon, which has been the hardest hit by fires in recent days.

Officials in eastern Oregon’s Malheur County and Baker County had issued evacuations for areas around the Durkee Fire since its beginning.

However, as of Thursday afternoon, all evacuation recommendations for the Durkee Fire in Malheur County have been lifted, said the Malheur County Sheriff’s Office in a social media post. As for Baker County, many areas’ evacuation levels have been reduced or eliminated, according to the county’s Sheriff’s Office.

Dense smoke from the flames have impeded traffic on Interstate 84, leading to periodic closure of the freeway.

Kotek called it a “dynamic situation.”

“The wildfires in Eastern Oregon have scaled up quickly,” Kotek said in a news release. “We are facing strong erratic winds over the region that could impact all fires. Rain is not getting through. Some communities do not have power.”

More than 500 firefighters and resources from 22 states are working to fight the fire, according to InciWeb.

“We have been at this for a number of days, and those days just seem to keep getting harder and harder with the weather that we’re seeing in our area and the intense fire behavior,” Sarah Sherman of the Bureau of Land Management said in a video update.

Over the weekend and earlier this week, the Durkee Fire exhibited extreme fire behavior, even creating it’s own weather in the form of pyrocumulus clouds.

The clouds form over heat sources due to the intense, upward vertical motion of air cooling and condensing as it moves higher into the sky. They can reach heights of 50,000 feet and generate their own systems of thunderstorms.

If fires burn hot enough, they can create clouds that produce lighting and rain, called pyrocumulonimbus.

“Over the last week, firefighters have been challenged by hot temperatures and gusty winds that continue to push several wildfires across the state,” the Oregon State Fire Marshal said.

Wildfire smoke, including from the Durkee Fire in Oregon, was spreading into Boise and beyond. Air quality alerts have been issued for parts of Colorado, Idaho, Oregon and Washington.

Patrick Nauman, the owner of Weiser Classic Candy in the small town of Weiser, Idaho, told the Associated Press that driving into town Wednesday morning was “like driving into a fog bank, because it’s so thick and low to the road.”

“Yesterday you could smell it, taste it, it just kind of hung in the back of your throat,” Nauman said of the smoke.

A cold front has moved through the area Thursday morning, bringing high temperatures to the 80s on Thursday, according to the National Weather Service. A red flag warning, which indicates increased risk of fire danger, has expired.

CNN Meteorologist Taylor Ward contributed to this report.

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