A Chico man was arrested on suspicion of starting the fast-growing Park Fire, which is now California's largest wildfire this year after burning at least 71,000 acres, prosecutors said.
CHICO – A Chico man was arrested on suspicion of starting the fast-growing Park Fire, which is now California's largest wildfire this year after burning at least 71,000 acres, prosecutors said.Just before 3 p.m. Wednesday, prosecutors said an unknown man was seen pushing a car on fire into a gully near Alligator Hole in upper Bidwell Park. The car then went down an approximate 60-foot embankment and burned, starting the Park Fire, prosecutors said.
The suspect, who was later identified as 42-year-old Ronnie Dean Stout II of Chico, is scheduled for arraignment on Monday.Stout has two previous 'strike' felony convictions, prosecutors said. In 2001, he was convicted of lewd and lascivious acts with a child under 14 in Butte County. He was convicted the following year in Kern County of robbery with great bodily injury, leading to a 20-year prison sentence, prosecutors added.
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