A Man Who is Thought to Have Started the Park Fire in California Has Been Caught While Oregon Fights a Huge Fire
“Someone pushed a burning car into a gully near the Alligator Hole in upper Bidwell Park just before 3:00 p.m. yesterday,” according to Butte County District Attorney Mike Ramsey. The guy who was arrested is 42 years old and is named Ronnie Dean Stout II. “The car went down about a 60-foot slope and caught fire, spreading the flames that started the Park Fire.”
The DA says that the man was seen “calmly leaving the area by blending in with the other people who were in the area and running away from the rapidly spreading fire.”
Ramsey said that Stout was caught at a mobile home park in Chico, California, around 2 a.m.
He has already been convicted twice in California. In 2001, he was found guilty of lewd acts on a child under 14 in Butte County, and in 2002, he was found guilty of robbery with great bodily injury in Kern County and given a 20-year prison term, Ramsey said. If someone in California has been convicted of two strikes, which are violent or serious felonies, they will get a much longer prison term if they are found guilty of a third felony.
CNN called the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to find out more about prison records, but they were not available right away.
Until his hearing on Monday, which is set by the DA’s office, the suspect is being held without bail.
Ramsey said it’s likely that Stout will be charged with fire, but it’s not clear what count or if any enhancements will be added. CNN was told by the DA’s office that Stout has not hired a lawyer and will be given a public defender at his hearing.
High winds and temperatures in the teens have helped the fire spread.
Some people in Butte County were told to leave their homes because the fire had grown overnight to almost 40,000 acres, which is about the size of Washington, DC. As of Thursday morning, the fire had burned about 50 football fields every minute since it began on Wednesday afternoon. Temperatures in the triple digits and strong winds have helped it grow.
CalFire says that more than 200 firemen have been sent to fight the fire.
The fires in Oregon “grew quickly.”
Oregon is currently the state with the most fires. The Durkee Fire, which was started by lightning, is the biggest of 31 big wildfires that are currently burning there.
Since the start of the Durkee Fire, officials in Malheur County and Baker County in eastern Oregon have told people to leave the places around it.
The Malheur County Sheriff’s Office said on social media that as of Thursday afternoon, there were no longer any reasons to leave the area because of the Durkee Fire in Malheur County. The Baker County Sheriff’s Office says that the number of places that need to be evacuated has been lowered or removed in many areas.
Traffic on Interstate 84 has been slowed down by thick smoke from the fires, which has caused the road to close at times.
It was what Kotek called a “dynamic situation.”
“The fires in Eastern Oregon have grown very quickly,” Kotek said in a press statement. “Over the area, there are strong winds that come and go, which could affect all fires.” It’s not raining. There is no power in some places.
InciWeb says that more than 500 firemen and other helpers from 22 states are fighting the fire.
In a video report, Sarah Sherman of the Bureau of Land Management said, “We’ve been at this for several 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.”
The Durkee Fire behaved very badly over the weekend and early this week. It even made its weather in the form of pyrocumulus clouds.
Clouds form over heat sources because air is moving quickly up and down, cooling and condensing as it goes higher into the sky. Their heights can reach 50,000 feet, and they can make their storm systems.
A type of cloud called pyrocumulonimbus can form over a fire that is burning hot enough to cause lightning and rain.
The Oregon State Fire Marshal said, “Over the last week, firefighters have had to deal with hot weather and strong winds that have pushed several wildfires across the state.”
Smoke from wildfires, like the Durkee Fire in Oregon, was reaching Boise and other places. Parts of Colorado, Idaho, Oregon, and Washington have been put on air quality watches.
The Associated Press talked to Patrick Nauman, owner of Weiser Classic Candy in the small Idaho town of Weiser. He said that coming into town Wednesday morning was “like driving into a fog bank” because the fog was so thick and low to the ground.
Nauman talked about the smoke: “Yesterday you could smell it, taste it, and it just kind of hung in the back of your throat.”
That morning, a cold front moved through the area. The National Weather Service says that Thursday’s high temperatures will be in the 80s. A red flag warning, which means there is a higher chance of a fire, has ended.