There are 26,000 residents in California under evacuation orders due to a major wildfire

Thousands of residents have been evacuated due to the massive Park Fire in northern California, which has burned an area larger than the city of Los Angeles. Throngs of firefighters were mobilized on Monday to combat the state's largest blaze of the year. The fire, which erupted outside of Chico, has been raging since Wednesday in a rural region about three hours northeast of San Francisco. 

The blaze has already consumed more than 370,000 acres (149,700 hectares), making it one of the largest fires in the state's history. Despite the fire's size and intensity, no casualties have been reported. A slight drop in temperatures over the weekend allowed firefighters to make some progress, and the fire is now 12 percent contained. 

Nearly 4,900 firefighters, along with 33 helicopters, 400 fire trucks, and numerous planes, have been deployed to battle the conflagration. More than 26,000 residents were under evacuation orders on Monday afternoon, with authorities calling for extreme caution due to the high risk of fire escalation. 

"This fire is extremely unstable and unpredictable," Tehama County Sheriff Dave Kain said in a press conference. He noted that areas deemed safe had reignited, complicating evacuation efforts. The fire spread at the speed of a person walking during the first 48 hours and produced fire tornadoes and mushroom-shaped smoke clouds. 

The rapid spread of the fire followed multiple heat waves that have hit California and the western United States since early June. Vegetation in the area remains extremely dry, exacerbated by a month of record-breaking heat and high evaporative demand, explained Daniel Swain, an extreme weather specialist at the University of California, Los Angeles.

While the Sierra Nevada foothills burn regularly, the specific canyons affected by the Park Fire had not experienced fires in decades, providing ample fuel for the flames. Despite California's extensive firefighting resources and expertise, the fire's scope exceeds current technological capabilities, Swain noted.

The Park Fire has rekindled painful memories for residents of Paradise, a town located about 12 miles from the flames, where 85 people died in the state's deadliest fire in 2018. Residents have been put on alert, and some, like Justin Freese, have prepared to defend their properties with firehoses and large water supplies. However, Freese emphasized his readiness to evacuate if necessary, saying, "If there's a 100-foot wall of flames coming, I'm not going to stay put and melt my skin."

Authorities have determined that arson caused the Park Fire. A 42-year-old man was taken into custody on Thursday morning after being spotted pushing a burning car into a ravine, according to the local prosecutor's office.

The United States is currently battling around 100 large fires, primarily in the west and especially in Oregon, where a pilot fighting the fires died last week. The smoke generated by these fires has led to air quality alerts in many areas. In California, a fire that broke out last week nearly destroyed the historic gold-mining town of Havilah over the weekend but fortunately caused no casualties.

Repeated heat waves and extreme weather events, accelerated by climate change and linked to humanity's reliance on fossil fuels, are contributing to the increasing frequency and intensity of wildfires, according to scientists.