Crews battle wildfires across western United States

Flames consume structures as the Park Fire burns in Tehama County, Calif., on Friday, July 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Noah Berger)

FOREST RANCH, Calif. (AP) — Wildfires across the western United States and Canada put millions of people under air quality alerts on Sunday as thousands of firefighters battled the flames, including the largest wildfire in California this year.

The so-called Park Fire had scorched an area greater than the size of Los Angeles as of Sunday, darkening the sky with smoke and haze and contributing to poor air quality in a large swath of the northwestern U.S. and western Canada. The blaze spanned more than 550 square miles of inland Northern California.

Firefighters were helped by cooler temperatures and more humidity on Saturday and made some progress, increasing containment from zero to 12%. The fire has drawn comparisons to the 2018 Camp Fire that tore through the nearby community of Paradise, killing 85 people and torching 11,000 homes.

Paradise and several other Butte County communities were under an evacuation warning Sunday. However, Cal Fire operations section chief Jeremy Pierce had some good news for the area, saying around midday that the Park Fire’s southernmost front, which is closest to Paradise, was “looking really good,” with crews focusing on extinguishing any remaining hotspots and removing other hazards over the next three days. He also said they don’t expect it to move farther into Chico, a city of about 100,000 people just west of Paradise.

But by Sunday afternoon, the fire continued to grow west, with flames crossing Highway 32 near Butte Meadows. Fire crews had originally hoped to use the highway as a containment line. Crews were aggressively attacking that portion of the fire on Sunday afternoon in an effort to keep it from spreading any closer to Butte Meadows.