Animation shows how California's Park Fire quickly grew to become one of the largest in state history
Northern California's Park Fire is continuing to burn across multiple counties, nearly three weeks after it first ignited when a man pushed a burning car into a gully. A new map from CBS News' data team shows how it quickly grew to become one of the largest in state history.
The Park Fire started on July 24 in Bidwell Park in Chico — just miles from the town of Paradise, which was decimated in the 2018 Camp Fire, the deadliest in state history. Data from Cal Fire shows the blaze exploded within hours to more than 45,500 acres, and within three days, it had spread to more than 353,000 acres, ranking it within the top 10 largest wildfires in California history. By Aug. 2 — just nine days after it ignited — it was among the top four.
As of Aug. 13, the Park Fire has scorched over 429,200 acres across four counties and is only at 39% containment.
Investigators say the blaze began after a local man pushed a burning car down a roughly 60-foot embankment. The suspect, 42-year-old Ronnie Dean Stout II, was arrested and charged with reckless arson.
And while arson was the cause for the fire, weather and climate conditions contributed to its rapid spread.
Firefighters for weeks now have been battling high temperatures — some days in the triple digits — as well as strong winds and low humidity. The area also had significant amounts of dry vegetation.
"The state of California experienced a hotter than normal June, combined with an excess of fine fuels from unusually wet winter and spring seasons. This has resulted in the vegetation being more susceptible to ignition and fire spread than has been observed in previous years," Cal Fire says on its website.
That combination fuels wildfires and allows them to spread more easily. Those factors have also grown increasingly worse due to climate change.
In August, NOAA and the National Integrated Drought Information System released a study finding that record-breaking wildfires have become a norm in California during the summer, with the amount of area burned in northern and central areas of the state increasing fivefold from 1996 to 2021.
"It was found that nearly all the observed increase in burned areas over the past half-century is due to human-caused climate change," a news release for the study said, with researchers noting that human-caused climate change led to a 320% increase in burned areas from 1996 to 2021.
"In the coming decades, a further increase in annual forest burned areas is expected, ranging from 3% to 52%," they warned.
Wildfire activity is already worse this year.
Cal Fire said that from January 1 to July 30, wildfire activity in the state was already 2,816% higher than the same period last year, with 4,613 wildfires burning 29 times the amount of acreage.
"As of July 30, 2024, wildfires have scorched a staggering 751,327 acres across our state," Cal Fire wrote on social media. This year's fires are far above both last year's numbers and the five-year average, the department found. And those numbers, released just two weeks ago, have already grown.
As of Aug. 13, Cal Fire reported 5,120 wildfires for the year and more than 814,300 total acres burned. The Park Fire remains the largest by far. The second-largest active wildfire, the Borel Fire in Kern County, is over 59,288 acres and more than 90% contained.
As bad as it is, Cal Fire has warned the year is far from over.
"Climate predictions are indicating above normal temperatures for all of California, resulting in an abnormally high fire risk for the remainder of the year," the agency said.