Police arrest man accused of starting California’s Park Fire engulfing Eastern Oregon
US, EPICSTORIAN – Eastern Oregon has been engulfed in the largest fearsome wildfire in the United States, scoring up to a land size of 270,000 acres.
A latest report, according to CalFire, said the Park Fire in California has exploded to nearly 125,00 acres and is 3% contained.
Police arrested a man after he was spotted “spreading flames that caused the Park Fire,” and pushing a fire-engulfed vehicle 60 feet into a gully, said the Butte County District Attorney’s Office Thursday.
Ronnie Dean Stout II, 42, has been arrested following accounts of witnesses, who confirmed they saw someone “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,” revealed Mike Ramsey, the Butte County District Attorney.
“The car went down an embankment approximately 60 feet and burned completely, spreading flames that caused the Park Fire.”
A further investigationsl also shows that the accused person was seen “calmly leaving the area by blending in with the other citizens who were in the area and fleeing the rapidly evolving fire.”
Stout was arrested at a mobile home park in Chico, California, around 2 a.m., said the attorney.
Stout’s Criminal history before the Park Fire
According to Ramsey, the perpetrator has two previous criminal records in California, having been convicted of a depraved acts on a child under 14 years old in Butte County in 2001.
He also was charged with violent robbery in 2002 in Kern County , and was was sentenced to 20 years in prison.
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In California, people with two prior strikes – convictions of violent or serious felonies – receive significantly longer prison sentences if convicted of a third felony, the attorney explained.
However, due to the Park Fire blaze many residents have been forced to evacuate their homes in Butte County, which appears to be state’s fire mouth.
More than 80 people were killed by the Camp Fire in 2018, with the magnitude adjusting almost close the current Park Fire incident.
