{"id":411830,"date":"2026-07-25T09:12:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-25T09:12:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/411830\/"},"modified":"2026-07-25T09:12:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-25T09:12:10","slug":"man-found-guilty-of-starting-park-fire-the-4th-largest-wildfire-in-california-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/411830\/","title":{"rendered":"Man found guilty of starting Park Fire, the 4th-largest wildfire in California history"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">(FOX40.COM) \u2014\u00a0A man was found guilty Friday of starting the fourth-largest wildfire in California history.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Ronnie Dean Stout II was convicted of arson after a judge found that he willfully and maliciously sparked the Park Fire near Upper Bidwell Park in Chico exactly two years ago, on July 24, 2024.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Over the course of two months, the Park Fire burned 429,603 acres across Butte and Tehama counties and destroyed more than 700 structures.<\/p>\n<p><a data-ylk=\"ct:story;elm:img;itc:0;\" class=\"stretched-box\" href=\"https:\/\/fox40.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/13\/2026\/07\/FOX40-WEB-RE-SIZER-PLEASE-MAKE-YOUR-OWN-COPY-11.png\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" target=\"_blank\"><img alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"900\" height=\"506\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"rounded-lg\" style=\"color:transparent\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/https:\/\/media.zenfs.com\/en\/ktxl_articles_604\/b803bf22dfce4872b13b26ad2ca5bd4f.jpeg\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">It was California&#8217;s largest wildfire of 2024.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The fire started after Stout pushed a burning car down an embankment into the park. Stout, a Chico resident, was arrested on July 25 \u2014 a day after starting the fire \u2014 by Cal Fire arson investigators.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">More than <a data-ylk=\"slk:6,500 total personnel;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas;\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;link&quot;,&quot;yLinkElementType&quot;:&quot;article_link&quot;}\" href=\"https:\/\/fox40.com\/news\/wildfire-watch\/park-fire\/hundreds-of-california-national-guard-soldiers-join-park-fire-hand-crews\/\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">6,500 total personnel<\/a> from multiple states contributed to fighting the massive wildfire, including 40 helicopters, 525 fire engines and 134 hand crews.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\"><a data-ylk=\"slk:For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to FOX40 News.;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas;\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;link&quot;,&quot;yLinkElementType&quot;:&quot;article_link&quot;}\" href=\"https:\/\/fox40.com\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">\u00a0For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to FOX40 News.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(FOX40.COM) \u2014\u00a0A man was found guilty Friday of starting the fourth-largest wildfire in California history. Ronnie Dean Stout&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":411831,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[75302,164837,6980,7,9,8,111821,3000],"class_list":["post-411830","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-arson-investigators","tag-bidwell-park","tag-cal-fire","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news","tag-fire-engines","tag-wildfire"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/411830","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=411830"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/411830\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/411831"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=411830"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=411830"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=411830"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}