As flames erupted behind him, Ronnie Dean Stout walked away calmly, blending in with other people who had been at Bidwell Park on Wednesday afternoon, enjoying the lush swimming hole, and who then were suddenly “fleeing a rapidly evolving fire,” authorities said.
Less than 12 hours later, around 1:30 a.m., investigators pulled into the Chico Mobile Home Park and arrested the 42-year-old for allegedly starting the raging Park Fire, which has now become California’s largest wildfire this year, exploding to more than 307,000 acres by early Saturday. It has forced thousands of residents to evacuate and has destroyed numerous homes, authorities said. Navigating brutal temperatures, strong winds and rugged terrain, crews have yet to contain any part of the blaze.
Around 1:40 a.m. Thursday, Crystal Parker had just gotten back to her trailer when she noticed flashing police lights outside the spot six doors down from her. Unable to sleep because of how close the Park Fire was to her home, she’d wanted to check and see if it had switched directions. She had no idea they were arresting the man suspected of starting the fire.
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Parker didn’t know Stout that well, but would see him often and wave when he said hello to her on his walks. He’d lived there “for quite some time” since getting out of jail and said he seemed “like a decent guy,” but “lonely,” she told The Washington Post. She said she’d heard Stout was excited about recently buying a car for $7,500 — the same one he is accused of mysteriously setting on fire.
A TikToker named Elizabeth Fox was one of the first to report seeing Stout, dressed in a red shirt and shorts, acting strangely shortly after she arrived at the swimming hole. In one video, she recalled hearing a car door shut, looked over, saw a man standing in front of his car “and all the sudden it starts bursting into flames.”
Stunned, she called 911 as Stout was getting back into the burning car. He then exited the vehicle, pushed it down the gully and “walked away like nothing happened,” she cried. The 28-year-old immediately started running to warn families at the swimming hole, she said in her video statement, warning them that there was a fire. As she was sounding the alarm, she saw Stout again, walking casually back toward the main park, Fox said.
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“He was calm. He was holding his phone and that was all he had,” she said. “He didn’t seem urgent to get out of there at all.”
The fire spread so fast that she barely got out, said Fox, who also lived through the Camp Fire and still has PTSD from watching it devastate the nearby town of Paradise in 2018. She gave the police the photos she took of the car and the man, calling the experience “horrific” especially because the man “didn’t even have the heart to tell people there was a fire.”
Three other young women told CBS that they had been enjoying the swimming hole when a man in his 40s walked up and started making strange remarks, slurring his words. He left them alone once a bystander came up, the group of friends said. Shortly after that is when they saw flames.
The Butte County district attorney and other authorities said that around 3 p.m., Stout lit a 2007 Toyota Yaris on fire. He then put it into neutral and pushed it 60 feet into the lush wildland area, the district attorney said. The fire erupted and quickly outmatched the firefighters who were called to respond.
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Stout has two felony convictions: He was convicted of child molestation in Butte County in 2001 and robbery with great bodily injury in Kern County in 2002. Stout was in prison for 19 years after the second conviction, records from Kern County show.
When officials arrested him this week, Stout was still on probation for a DUI, the district attorney’s office said. While officials said he has not yet been charged, they plan to book him on suspicion of intentional arson once they finish reviewing the evidence. He is now in the Butte County Jail, and the arraignment is set for Monday, according to the district attorney.
Back at the Chico Mobile Home Park, residents are processing the prospect that someone who lived there may have started a fire that could have destroyed them.
Amanda Brown, who has lived in the park for about seven years, said she recognized Stout and couldn’t believe that someone, especially one of her neighbors, would “deliberately do this knowing how many lives are at stake.” She said this was especially true after what her community went through after losing Paradise.
Brown is still terrified of fire because of what she saw. Her brother lost everything, including his long-term boyfriend. He did not have fire insurance for his double-wide, and has never recovered. She had many friends lose their businesses and others who became homeless.
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“The trauma of the Paradise Fire, they — we — haven’t gotten over it,” she said. “Losing a whole town, all those people who died.”
Anxiously watching the Park Fire grow, she can’t help but think of what could happen to her and her 80-year-old aunt, who just moved in with her, if a similar fire were to roar into their community.
“In these mobile home parks, we are packed in like sardines. This thing will go up in 10 minutes,” she said. “Everything we own is in this single-wide mobile home.”
