Why California’s massive Park Fire is spreading so quickly—and could keep burning for weeks

Climate change is making fires worse, but that’s not the only reason the Park Fire is particularly disastrous.

California’s massive Park Fire—now covering nearly 400,000 acres, an area more than twice as large as New York City—started with arson. On July 24, a 42-year-old man allegedly set his car on fire, put it in neutral, and pushed it down a steep gully at a park in the city of Chico, where dry grass and brush immediately started to burn.