California wildfire sparked by burning car triples in size [Video]

The Park Fire had burned more than 250 square miles near the Northern California city of Chico by early Friday.

CHICO, Calif. — A wildfire that has tripled in size in one day, becoming California’s largest of the year even as other blazes scorched the Pacific Northwest, was started by a burning car, authorities said. They arrested a man who was seen pushing the blazing car into a gully.

The man was seen pushing the car in Bidwell Park in Northern California’s Butte County, and it burned completely, spreading flames that caused the Park Fire, county prosecutor Mike Ramsey said in a news release. The blaze had burned more than 257 square miles (666 square kilometers) by early Friday near Chico, a city of about 100,000.

The man calmly left the area, in one of the nation’s largest urban parks, by blending in with other people and fleeing the “rapidly …