12:30 p.m. update July 26: Cal Fire says the Park Fire has burned 178,000 acres and 134 structures. Evacuation orders have been expanded and can be checked here.
by Leslie Layton
posted July 25
The Park Fire in Upper Bidwell Park east of Chico city limits reached almost 71,500 acres by midday today with only 3% containment.
It continues to be hot and windy, thousands of people are under evacuation order or warning and air quality for most city residents has slid from good to moderate.
Vice Mayor Kasey Reynolds said today that she confirmed, at 1 a.m. this morning, that the Butte County Association of Governments (BCAG) has buses on standby if the residents of the Alternate Site homeless encampment at Eaton and Cohasset roads have to be evacuated.
Reynolds, noting that she’s the City representative on BCAG, said, “City staff has worked with county staff and is well aware of the situation and will have an alternative place they can transfer everybody if the wind changes, and, God forbid” that becomes necessary.
For the moment, City Manager Mark Sorensen said the City-sanctioned encampment was outside the mandatory evacuation zone in response to early-morning inquiries from Angela McLaughlin from the Stand Up for Chico political action group.
“What is the plan to evacuate residents of that site if needed?”, McLaughlin said in an email to Sorensen and members of the City Council. “Does the city have a bus or similar available? What about N95 masks to protect them from smoke?”
In response, Sorensen said the encampment, where about 90 unhoused people live, is on the side of Sycamore Creek that is not within the evacuation zone. Vice Mayor Reynolds then responded to McLaughlin.
McLaughlin commented later to ChicoSol on the conversation, estimating that the encampment is less than 100 feet from the bridge that crosses Sycamore Creek. “It’s literally on the other side of the creek,” she said. The fire isn’t “likely to get there today unless the wind shifts.”
The point, she said, is the lack of advance emergency planning.
Butte County Sheriff’s spokesperson Megan McMann says 4,000 Butte County residents are under mandatory evacuation order. Several zones in Tehama County to the west are also under order to evacuate.
Cal Fire says on its website that there’s an evacuation center at the Neighborhood Church at 2801 Notre Dame Blvd. in Chico. Two animal shelters are listed in Oroville.
Butte County District Attorney Mike Ramsey, meanwhile, says in a press statement today that a 42-year-old Chico man, Ronnie Dean Stout II, has been arrested on suspicion of starting the fire. The press release says the suspect “was seen pushing a car that was on fire into a gully near the Alligator Hole in upper Bidwell Park shortly before 3:00 p.m. yesterday.
“The car went down an embankment approximately 60 feet and burned completely, spreading flames that caused the Park Fire.”
More updates will be available on ChicoSol and from North State Public Radio.
Leslie Layton is editor of ChicoSol.
I’m glad to read that buses are on stand-by to evacuate the residents of the City Eaton & Cohasset camp if necessary. That was not clear earlier.