Convicted Child Molester Burns 350,000+ Acres, Causes Fire Tornado

When conflagrations grow to the size of the ongoing Park Fire, they generate their own thunderstorms, or pyrocumulonimbus clouds like seen here. These can, just like their meteorological cousins, spawn tornadoes.

A convicted child molester allegedly triggered one of the rarest severe weather phenomena in the world. Authorities in Butte County, California booked 42-year-old Ronnie Stout on Thursday morning on suspicion of causing a fire that would consume over 350,000 acres and spawn a fire tornado. Stout is believed to have set his mother’s car ablaze before rolling it under some trees in Chico’s Bidwell Park. The man thought liable for the resulting Park Fire is, as it turns out, a repeat offender. Priors include one DUI, robbery with “great bodily injury,” and multiple counts of child molestation. 

Wednesday, July 24: the Park Fire begins

Butte County District Attorney Michael Ramsey says the fire began around 3 PM, when the sun was at its strongest. After months without rain, the woods quickly went up in flames. Images of the aftermath at Bidwell Park show trees charred black, dead foliage curled inward. The burnt remains of his mother’s Toyota Yaris lay in a bed of white ash like a cremated cat skull.

The Park Fire takes its name from the same park in which police cited Stout with a DUI. No word on whether the incendiary Yaris was the vehicle involved in that citation. Neighbors say Stout got out of prison eighteen months ago and had been caring for his aging mother since. Whether his neighbors knew of his child molestation charges is uncertain. The law requires him to register as a sex offender. 

After he reportedly set fire to the vehicle, witnesses say Stout put it in neutral and rolled it over an embankment. He walked away “calmly” as trees caught fire behind him. Smoke signaled danger to nearby swimmers seeking relief from the brutal summer heat. Stout blended in with park-goers running from the scene. Police pursued a warrant for his arrest fourteen hours later.

By Thursday, the Park Fire is the largest of its kind.

When police arrested Stout on Thursday morning, the fire had claimed over 100,000 acres and a number of homes. Easily outdoing the 14,000-acre Corral Fire west of Tracy in June, the Park Fire would consume over 200,000. It threatens a landscape already scarred by the Camp Fire in 2018. Smaller than the ongoing Park Fire, the blaze six years earlier is California’s deadliest for now, with 85 victims lost in the disaster.

In California, we understand that fires and earthquakes happen. There’s no good or bad inherent in them. The Park Fire is different. Unlike with lightning or even a downed power line, all this wanton destruction is the result of deliberate choice. Ronnie Stout appears to have done great harm on purpose, time and again. He could be relying on the spectacle to eclipse his terrible legacy, assuming he can rationalize at all. But some men really do just want the world to burn. 

The firestorm created its own weather.

The Park Fire grew dangerously fast. Hot, dry winds circulating under a dome of high pressure boosted the fire by tens of thousands of acres overnight. As the flames grew and smoke plumed over the Nevada-California state line, the heat it generated caused a powerful updraft. Winds on the ground went one direction. Meanwhile, winds high aloft went another. The updraft, a column of hot, rising air, began to spin. 

At around 6 PM Thursday, meteorologists detected rotation in the thunderhead that exploded to life above the Park Fire. Doppler radar revealed that classic swirling pattern while webcams on a nearby ridge caught footage of the funnel. It is difficult to assess the strength of a fire tornado. They torch most of the damage they cause, erasing signature classifiers like ripped-off roofing and debris embedded in wood. All they do is destroy, and then they burn the evidence. With 0% rain chances and temperatures forecast to soar into the hundreds, relief will not come from the weather. 

Friday, July 26: Governor Newsom declares a State of Emergency 

In just forty-eight hours, a child molester left his mother’s mobile home in Chico (Boy in English) and likely set fire to her car before ditching it in Bidwell Park, sparking a fire that would spawn a fire tornado before swelling to the eighth largest blaze in the state’s recorded history. By Friday it would straddle two counties and ravage over 300,000 acres. 134 structures have burnt down so far. The only good news is that, as of 7 PM Saturday evening, no lives have been lost.

Convicted child molester Ronnie Stout’s mugshot, courtesy California Department of Corrections.

If Ronnie Stout was looking to swap his legacy as a child molester for a firestarter, he failed. The suspected arsonist doesn’t get a do-over. No Mulligans for Uncle Bad Touch. He belongs in jail. Instead of burning his past away, he will be remembered as a glutton for destruction, at once an enemy to nature and humankind.