Firefighters keep a close eye on the weather as wildfires spread across the west

By Zoë Sottile and Susannah Cullinane, CNN

(CNN) — Wildfires are raging across the western United States and Canada, damaging homes, causing injuries and forcing evacuations. The largest active wildfire in the U.S. has burned more than 360,000 acres — an area larger than the city of Phoenix — and firefighters are watching to see if the weather will give them an advantage. Here’s the latest:

• Hope to stop the spread of forest fires: The Northwest forecast calls for lighter winds than the area has seen in recent days, giving firefighters some optimism that the Park Fire will slow its progress, along with more than 100 large wildfires burning across the region and engulfing thousands of acres. Temperatures across much of the West will actually be at or below average this week, with highs through Tuesday forecast in the 60s to 70s along the Pacific Coast and the 70s to 80s inland in the Pacific Northwest.

• Park Fire is the largest active wildfire in the US: The Park Fire, the seventh-largest wildfire in California history, now encompasses more than 360,000 acres, or 560 square miles. According to Cal Fire, the blaze has destroyed 100 structures and threatens thousands more. As of Monday morning, the fire was 12% contained, but evacuation warnings or orders remained in place in Butte, Tehama, Plumas and Shasta counties. Lighter winds from the south may help take pressure off the eastern edge of the fire. President Joe Biden has directed his administration to do everything possible to support the ongoing firefighting effort, a White House official said.

• Arson suspect to appear in court on Monday: A 42-year-old man, identified as Ronnie Dean Stout II, has been arrested after being accused of starting the Park Fire. The man is suspected of pushing a burning car 60 feet into a ditch, sparking flames that caused an inferno, Butte County District Attorney Mike Ramsey said.

• Progress in fighting the Durkee fire in Oregon: The Durkee Fire is the largest wildfire burning in Oregon, encompassing more than 288,000 acres. Three people have been injured and four homes have been destroyed. The fire was According to InciWeb, 49% of the snow was under control as of Monday morning, but this figure could improve further as the wind dies down and humidity drops.

• Teams see more challenges in Jasper, Alberta: While rain over the weekend helped firefighters battle the Jasper Wildfire Complex, the largest wildfire in the park in more than a century, warmer weather in the coming days could pose even more challenges. Temperatures in the area have dropped and showers are likely on Monday, with highs expected in the upper 60s to mid 70s and rising throughout the week. The wildfire danger in the southern parts of the province remains very high to extreme, according to Melissa Story, spokesperson for Alberta Wildfire. “This area did not experience as much moisture as other areas in the province,” Story said.

Firefighters Making Progress in California

Clouds and smoke allowed firefighters to expand their lines around the Park Fire on Saturday, but the challenges were present again on Sunday, said Cal Fire Chief Billy See.

While evacuation orders were downgraded to warnings in some areas, local fires prevented authorities from lifting or modifying orders or warnings, officials said.

“We are working hard to get people back into their homes as quickly as possible,” said Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea.

Jeremy Hollingshead, firefighter and spokesman for the Yuba City Fire Department, told CNN that conditions are not favorable for firefighters.

“It was a wind-driven fire, a topography-driven fire, a fuel-driven fire, everything was against us,” Hollingshead said. “At that point, we threw everything we had at it, but again, we’re not going to put anybody in charge of this thing. What we had to do was put crews in the high-risk areas, where structures could potentially burn down, and do the best job we could there.”

He added that firefighters took advantage of the more favourable conditions to better control the fire.

“Firefighters right now, from the air to the ground, are taking advantage of the weather-driven situation that we have, so hopefully we can mitigate a lot of that threat over the next few days,” Hollingshead said.

Chico, California, the largest city in Butte County where the Park Fire is burning, will see temperatures in the low 90s on Monday and Tuesday, a significant drop from last week’s triple-digit temperatures. Winds also continue to decrease in the area of ​​the Park Fire, with sustained winds below 10 mph on Monday, and as low as 5 mph on Tuesday.

There is even a weak storm system approaching the Pacific Northwest that is expected to bring some chance of showers. This amount of rainfall is helpful because it does not lead to a major risk of flooding and burning.

Residents describe driving through flames of ‘raging fire’

The massive Park Fire, believed to be the result of arson, forced thousands of people to flee their homes as it erupted Wednesday near Chico, California. Thousands of acres were being burned by the hour, dozens of buildings were being incinerated and graveyards were being left full of burned trees and cars.

John Maretti, a retired firefighter from Chico, told CNN he lost his home in the Park Fire despite preparing as best he could.

“I bought a bulldozer. We cleaned everything up. We made sure we had a Class A roof and non-combustible walls. We did a lot. We had sprinklers. We had hoses. I mean, I’m a firefighter. I set this up so that the house could survive to the maximum extent possible and it didn’t,” Maretti said. “There’s just no way anyone could have survived with this house.”

Despite the destruction of his property, Maretti said he felt fortunate that his household – which includes two dogs and a cat – was unharmed, something he attributed in part to breaking his ankle last Monday.

“I felt very capable of staying. And I have tubes, I have all kinds of equipment, but with a broken ankle, I just don’t have a choice. I had to leave. And fortunately, because I had the broken ankle, it probably saved my life, because I probably would have stayed and tried to fight it, which would have been the wrong decision,” he said.

Maretti said the speed at which the fire spread was not what he was used to.

“This was just a lot faster fire than I’ve ever seen,” Maretti said. “This is just a raging fire, and completely unlike anything I’ve ever seen before.”

A Tehama County resident told CNN station KOVR he fled the Park Fire via the only exit road out of their neighborhood, where the fire had already spread.

“When we saw the fire coming over the ridge, which it was doing, it was coming towards us. We thought it was bad. And then we just piled everything in the car and drove away,” Jim Young told KOVR.

“We pull onto the highway and it burns on both sides for 10 miles. It was like driving through an inferno,” Young said.

The Park Fire is raging in Butte County, where California’s deadliest wildfire, the Camp Fire, killed more than 85 people and destroyed thousands of homes in 2018.

Bruce Hey and his brother-in-law Christopher Apel told KOVR the fire forced them to evacuate their neighboring properties in the Cohasset neighborhood.

“There were a lot of people staying there because of the Camp Fire and … and everything was burning,” Apel told KOVR.

Hey said he drove through the fire to a safe place, but burned his arm in the process.

“I was trying to avoid him,” he said. “I wouldn’t have gotten burned if I hadn’t rolled down the window to look in the rearview mirror. I was right in the middle of him, and I was trying to put him in reverse.”

More than 17,000 people still evacuated in Jasper, Alberta

Jasper, a popular tourist town in the heart of Alberta’s Jasper National Park, is facing massive devastation following the wildfire that has burned nearly 36,000 hectares.

The park remains closed and more than 17,000 people are still under evacuation orders, Jose Tilney, deputy director of the Alberta Emergency Management Agency, said Sunday afternoon.

Nearly 40 percent of all buildings in the city have been destroyed by the Jasper Wildlife Complex fire, according to data released Saturday by the City of Jasper.

Of the city’s 1,113 structures, 410 were destroyed and 10 sustained visible damage, according to the Jasper Rapid Visual Damage Assessment.

The fire is still “out of control and is expected to become more active in the coming days due to warmer weather,” Parks Canada said.

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CNN’s Cindy Von Quednow, Robert Shackelford, Jamiel Lynch, Camila Bernal, Emma Tucker, Paradise Afshar and Sarah Moon contributed to this report.