Lightning strike and burning car pushed into ditch believed to have started wildfire in West: NPR

Flames burn a building as the Park Fire moves through the community of Cohasset in Butte County, California on Thursday.

Noah Berger/AP

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Noah Berger/AP

A burning car pushed into a ravine sparked California’s largest wildfire of the year, authorities said Thursday as they announced the arrest of a suspect. Meanwhile, other fires have burned across the Pacific Northwest.

Flames from the fire the man allegedly started became the current Park Fire, which has burned more than 195 square miles (505 square kilometers) near the city of Chico. Evacuation orders have been issued in Butte and Tehama counties, with the fire only 3% contained as of Thursday evening.

California authorities did not immediately name the man they arrested.

Also in California, near the Nevada border, about 1,000 people remained displaced from their homes on Thursday after evacuation orders were issued Monday night when lightning sparked the Gold Complex Fire, which burned more than 4 square miles (10 square kilometers) of brush and timber in the Plumas National Forest, about 50 miles (80 kilometers) northwest of Reno, Forest Service spokeswoman Adrienne Freeman said.

There were no reports of structural damage, deaths or serious injuries at the Gold Complex of fires southwest of Portola near the Nevada border. But they still had no containment as of Thursday.

“We’ve made some really good progress on the fires,” Tom Browning, the Forest Service’s operations division chief, said Thursday afternoon. “But it’s hot, dry and very windy… With the winds and the high temperatures, we don’t have good containment on all of these lines.”

Gusty winds are also making it difficult for crews fighting the Park Fire, sparking new fires up to a mile from the main fire line, said Tim Fike, the Forest Service’s incident commander at the Gold Complex.

“That’s a huge issue with the Park Fire right now,” Fike said.

As evacuations continued in California, some Oregon residents were allowed to return home after a thunderstorm brought welcome rain but also posed a danger to the largest active wildfire in the United States. More than two dozen new fires broke out in Montana on Wednesday and early Thursday, and another fast-moving blaze forced thousands to flee a town in Canada.

In eastern Oregon, evacuation orders were lifted for the city of Huntington, population 500, after a severe thunderstorm late Wednesday brought rain and cooler temperatures to the nearly 630 square miles (1,630 square kilometers) burned by the Durkee Fire — the largest in the country — and another nearby blaze.

The White House said President Joe Biden called Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek on Thursday evening and expressed support for ensuring the state has everything it needs to fight the fires.

Baker County Sheriff Travis Ash called the rain a “godsend,” and the Oregon State Fire Marshal said firefighters were ready to “seize the moment” when conditions improved to fight a fire on the Oregon-Idaho border. The fire remains unpredictable and is only 20% contained, according to government website InciWeb.

Lightning strikes sparked 15 new fires overnight in Idaho, the U.S. Forest Service told Boise’s KBOI-TV, but several had been extinguished by Thursday afternoon. On Wednesday alone, the National Weather Service in Boise said it detected more than 2,800 cloud-to-ground lightning strikes across southeastern Oregon and Idaho.

Overall, nearly 1,562 square miles (4,045 square kilometers) have burned so far this summer in the Pacific Northwest. Oregon alone has had 34 major fires, most of them in the central or eastern parts of the state.

Climate change is increasing the frequency of lightning-caused wildfires across the Pacific Northwest and Western Canada as the region endures record-breaking heat, with multiple days of triple-digit temperatures and dry conditions. Idaho Power has imposed its first-ever precautionary power outages, cutting power to thousands of customers to prevent new wildfires and other grid failures caused by downed power lines in high winds, the utility said.

In Northern California, firefighters are focusing on evacuating and protecting structures while using bulldozers to build perimeters ahead of the Park Fire. No deaths or structural damage have been reported, the Butte County Fire Department/CAL FIRE said.

A fire in Southern California was much smaller, but moved quickly and threatened many homes.

Evacuation orders went into effect Wednesday night in San Diego County after a wildfire began spreading rapidly near the Riverside County border. Fire officials said the Grove Fire was moving southeast through steep, challenging terrain. The fire grew to 1.4 square miles (3.6 square kilometers) overnight and was 10% contained by Thursday afternoon.

In Montana, a wildfire warning is in effect in the central part of the state due to high temperatures, low humidity and strong winds. An extreme heat warning east of the storm front means temperatures could soar to 108 degrees Fahrenheit (42 degrees Celsius). After storm winds downed trees, downed power lines and damaged gas pipelines in the Missoula area, officials urged people to stay away from rivers that could become electrified.

In Jasper National Park in the Canadian Rockies, a fast-moving wildfire this week ripped through the park’s namesake town, forcing thousands to evacuate and causing significant damage to the World Heritage Site. The fire, like those burning across the western United States, has prompted several air quality warnings or advisories as the skies filled with smoke and haze.