Agencies
Sacramento
An enormous wildfire has grown by 8sq miles an hour (20sqkm) as it spreads across parts of northern California.
The Park fire, which started on Wednesday in a suspected arson attack, has burned more than 350,000 acres of land north-east of Chico, and was only 10 percent contained as of Sunday morning, the state’s fire agency Cal Fire said.
About 3,700 firefighters are battling the blaze, which has been fuelled by steep terrain and wind gusts.
A 42-year-old man was arrested on Thursday on suspicion of starting the fire by rolling a burning car into a gully near Alligator Hole in Butte County.
It is now the largest fire in the state this year, and the seventh largest ever recorded in California. It has consumed an area more than 1.5 times the size of New York City’s five boroughs.
Fire captain Robert Foxworthy said steep terrain and very few roads have made it a challenge to battle the blaze. He said the sheer scale of the fire was made worse by embers being flung out a “great distance” ahead of the main fire, sparking a large number of spot fires.
Cal Fire incident commander Billy See said the fire had spread at a rate of 5,000 acres an hour.
Speaking at an operational briefing, See said there were almost three times the personnel fighting the fire on Saturday compared to Friday, and “we still don’t have enough”.
Authorities were hopeful they could use Saturday’s easing of conditions to contain some of the blaze.
