California wildfires are largest in state history
Two fires in northern California have become the largest in the state's history, fire officials have said.
The fires, known as the Mendocino Complex, are burning around 100 miles north of San Francisco.
They are a few miles apart but are being treated as the same incident.
Since being ignited on 27 July they have stretched across 283,000 acres (443.4 square miles).
Thousands of people have been forced to flee and at least 75 homes have been destroyed.
Authorities say that the fires are only 30% contained.
Scott McLean, a deputy chief with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, described the flames as "extremely fast, extremely aggressive, extremely dangerous".
He added: "Look how big [the fire] got, just in a matter of days.
"Look how fast this Mendocino Complex went up in ranking.
"That doesn't happen. That just doesn't happen."
More than 14,000 firefighters are fighting various fires across the north west of the US.
Their numbers were bolstered by the arrival of almost 150 colleagues from Australia and New Zealand on Monday.
Mr McLean said: "I can remember a couple of years ago when we saw 10 to 12,000 firefighters in the states of California, Oregon and Washington and never the 14,000 we see now."
Further north, the Carr Fire has burned through more than 154,000 acres since 23 July and has been blamed on the "mechanical failure of a vehicle", which caused sparks to fly in the extremely dry conditions.
That fire has claimed more than 1,600 buildings, most of them homes.
The largest fire had been the Thomas Fire of December last year, which was around 440 square miles.
That fire killed two people, including a firefighter, and destroyed more than 1,000 buildings.
It was finally brought under control on 12 January.
By Sharon Marris, news reporter


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