By Chelsea Bacon
Smoke came into Modoc County earlier last week after a man out of Chico, Ronnie Dean Stout II, pushed his car that was set on fire into a gully near the Alligator Hole in Upper Bidwell Park in Chico shortly after 3:00 pm the 24th the Butte Sheriff’s Department reports. The vehicle plummeted 60 feet and engulfed its surroundings and started the notorious Park Fire. Butte County District Attorney, Mark Murphy, said Stout has been found and arrested on July 25th for arson without bail.
The Park Fire which ignited on July 24 as of Monday July 29th the fire has reached 368,256 acres and has destroyed 109 structures, damaged 5 structures and threatened 4200 structures with 14 percent containment reported Cal Fire. There are no reported injuries as of Monday morning. The counties greatly affected by the Park Fire are Butte, Plumas, Shasta and Tehama.
CBS news announced that the Park Fire is the second largest fire on record after the fire has proceeded to damage almost half the size of Rhode Island. According to Cal Fire, the Park Fire now ranks between the SCU Lightning Complex Fire of 2020 that burned 396,625 acres and Creek Fire that same year, which burned 379,895 acres. The August Complex Fire, also in 2020, remains the largest in state history with more than 1 million acres burned.
Though the blanket of smoke and ash falling from the sky in Modoc County is unhealthy, we are fortunate to not be one of the counties affected by the Park Fire.
