Checking in on the Park Fire
Jul. 30th, 2024 10:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
canyonwalkerThe Park Fire continues to burn in northern California, north of Chico and east of Red Bluff. As of Sunday evening it has burned 386,000 acres. That's over 600 square miles. It is now the 5th largest fire in modern California history.
Here's a map of the fire as of this evening from CalFire (click on image for link to source page):
The CalFire incident page for the Park Fire notes that there are over 5,700 personnel fighting this one fire. Firefighters are being pulled in from all over the state. When we were in Redding on Sunday afternoon, stopping for lunch while driving through, we chatted with a fire crew who'd just driven up from near where we live.
The size of the fire, at 386,000 acres as of this evening, hasn't grown much in the past 48 hours. Authorities say that's because the hot weather in the area that last through Friday broke on Saturday. With cooler temperatures and more humidity in the air, the fire has spread more slowly. This has also enabled crews to start containing it— though as of this evening it's still only 18% contained.
Miraculously there are no deaths reported from this fire. Thousands of people have had to evacuate homes, though. To their credit, and to the credit of authorities managing the situation, people were moved to safety quickly. I'm sure plenty of people in the areas impacted remember the tragedy of the 2018 fire that burned the town of Paradise. There, even a half day of "The fire can't possibly spread over here that fast!" meant that when evacuations orders did come, there was pandemonium and dozens of people died.
Here's a map of the fire as of this evening from CalFire (click on image for link to source page):
The CalFire incident page for the Park Fire notes that there are over 5,700 personnel fighting this one fire. Firefighters are being pulled in from all over the state. When we were in Redding on Sunday afternoon, stopping for lunch while driving through, we chatted with a fire crew who'd just driven up from near where we live.
The size of the fire, at 386,000 acres as of this evening, hasn't grown much in the past 48 hours. Authorities say that's because the hot weather in the area that last through Friday broke on Saturday. With cooler temperatures and more humidity in the air, the fire has spread more slowly. This has also enabled crews to start containing it— though as of this evening it's still only 18% contained.
Miraculously there are no deaths reported from this fire. Thousands of people have had to evacuate homes, though. To their credit, and to the credit of authorities managing the situation, people were moved to safety quickly. I'm sure plenty of people in the areas impacted remember the tragedy of the 2018 fire that burned the town of Paradise. There, even a half day of "The fire can't possibly spread over here that fast!" meant that when evacuations orders did come, there was pandemonium and dozens of people died.
