People Flee Idaho Town Through a Tunnel of Fire and Smoke as Western Wildfires Spread

Lightning strikes have sparked fast-moving wildfires in Idaho, prompting the evacuation of multiple communities, including one where a man drove past a building and trees engulfed in flames as a tunnel of smoke rose over the roadway.

Videos posted to social media include a man who said he heard explosions as he fled Juliaetta, about 27 miles (43 kilometers) southeast of the University of Idaho's campus in Moscow. The town of just over 600 residents was evacuated Thursday just ahead of the Gwen Fire, as were several other communities near the Clearwater River.

The Idaho Department of Lands said “multiple structures” were burned, but the agency did not immediately release additional details, including whether the structures were homes or outbuildings.

As that and other blazes scorch the Pacific Northwest, authorities announced that a wildfire that tripled in size to become California’s largest of the year was started by a man who was seen pushing a burning car into a gully.

The man then calmly left the area in Bidwell Park, blending in with other people and fleeing the scene as the rapidly spreading flames caused the Park Fire, Butte County prosecutor Mike Ramsey said. A 42-year-old man from Chico was arrested early Thursday and held without bail pending a Monday arraignment, officials said.

A massive firefighting response couldn’t contain the fire as it roared through dry brush and rough terrain and sent a huge plume of smoke over neighboring states. It had burned more than 257 square miles (666 square kilometers) by early Friday as it expanded from the hills above Chico, a city of about 100,000 in the northern Central Valley.

Evacuations were ordered in Butte and Tehama counties, with the Park Fire considered completely uncontained Friday morning. About 4,000 residents in unincorporated areas of Butte County and 400 residents of Chico were ordered to evacuate, Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea said late Thursday. Two minor injures were reported, more than 130 structures were destroyed and some 4,200 were threatened.

“The fire quickly began to outpace our resources because of the dry fuels, the hot weather, the low humidities and the wind,” Butte County Fire Chief Garrett Sjolund said.

The Park Fire was burning to the northwest of Paradise, the Butte County community where in 2018 the notorious Camp Fire killed 85 people and incinerated thousands of homes, becoming California’s deadliest and most destructive wildfire. Honea said he wanted “to express regret and frustration by the fact that we are here once again.”

Climate change is increasing the frequency of lightning strikes as the region endures recording-breaking heat and bone-dry conditions. Overall, more than 1,500 square miles (4,000 square kilometers) have burned so far this summer in the U.S. Pacific Northwest, and more wildfires have spread in western Canada.

The most damage so far has been to the Canadian Rockies’ Jasper National Park, where a fast-moving wildfire forced 25,000 people to flee and devastated the park’s namesake town, a World Heritage site.

Oregon still has the biggest active blaze in the United States, the Durkee Fire, which combined with the Cow Fire to burn nearly 630 square miles (1,630 square kilometers). It remains unpredictable and was only 20% contained Friday, according to the government website InciWeb.

Some residents were cleared to return home in areas already burned by the Durkee Fire after thunderstorms Wednesday produced welcome rain and cooler temperatures. Evacuations were lifted for the eastern Oregon city of Huntington, population 500. Baker County Sheriff Travis Ash called the rain a “godsend,” and the Oregon state fire marshal said firefighters were set to “seize the opportunity” of better conditions to push back the fire on the Oregon-Idaho border.

But the leading edge of that weather also produced lightning strikes, which started 15 new fires in Idaho. For the first time, Idaho Power pre-emptively shut off electricity to thousands of customers to prevent new fires and power grid trouble from wires downed by the high winds, the utility said.

The U.S. Forest Service told Boise’s KBOI-TV that several of those had been extinguished by Thursday afternoon. Meanwhile, more than two dozen new fires also started in Montana on Wednesday and early Thursday.

Elsewhere in California, about 1,000 people remained displaced Thursday by the lightning-sparked Gold Complex fires, which burned more than 4 square miles (10 square kilometers) of brush and timber in the Plumas National Forest in California, near the Nevada line and about 50 miles (80 kilometers) northwest of Reno, Forest Service spokesperson Adrienne Freeman said. There have been no reports of structural damage, deaths or serious injuries, but the fires were at zero containment Thursday amid the same gusty winds plaguing crews working the Park Fire, authorities said.

And in inland Southern California, firefighters battled a small fire that erupted Thursday afternoon in hills just above the Riverside County city of Lake Elsinore. The Macy Fire was 15% contained early Friday, with one unspecified structure destroyed. In rural northern San Diego County, containment of the 3-day-old Grove Fire jumped to 25% after a day of minimal growth.

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Associated Press writers Holly Ramer, Sarah Brumfield, Claire Rush, Scott Sonner, Martha Bellisle and Amy Hanson contributed to this report.