A California wildfire that has already burned more than 120,000 acres and is still raging — the state’s largest so far this year — was started when a former inmate and registered sex offender drove his burning car into a ditch in a park, authorities said Thursday.
According to the Butte County District Attorney’s Office, the inferno, now known as the “Park Fire,” began just before 3 p.m. Wednesday when suspect Ronnie Dean Stout II, 42, drove his vehicle into a ditch in Bidwell Park near the city of Chico.
The burning car rolled 60 feet down an embankment, spreading flames all around it and burning, ultimately forcing mass evacuations in neighboring Butte and Tehama counties.
Stout was then seen calmly leaving the fire scene, blending in with park-goers fleeing the “rapidly growing blaze,” the district attorney’s office said in a statement.
Gusty winds caused the fire to grow rapidly and it was only 3% contained by Thursday evening.
Cal Fire and arson investigators from the district attorney’s office identified the suspect as Stout, who was serving a 20-year sentence in state prison for a 2002 robbery conviction, and arrested him early Thursday.
Stout, a Chico resident, was booked into the Butte County Jail and will remain in custody pending his arraignment, scheduled for Monday.
He has been charged with arson and has two previous “strike” felony convictions and will also be charged with those crimes under California law.
According to the district attorney, he was convicted in 2001 of lewd acts with a child under 14 and in 2002 of robbery resulting in serious injury.
According to California’s “three strikes and you’re out” law, Stout could face life in prison if convicted of the arson charge because he has been convicted twice of “serious or violent” crimes as defined by the California Penal Code.
