California Governor Gavin Newsom had declared a state of emergency in five counties due to the wildfires.
San Miguel County Firefighters battle a brush fire along Japatul Road during the Valley Fire in Jamul, California on 6 September 2020. Photo: AFP
The declaration was prompted by the Creek Fire that started on Friday night and rapidly grew to burn some 18,210 hectares, forcing evacuations and road closures in the Fresno area in central California.
Eight people have been killed and some 3300 structures have been destroyed over the past three weeks in wildfires across the state.
More than 200 people were airlifted to safety overnight after a fast-moving wildfire cut off the only road out of the Mammoth Pool Reservoir, a popular recreational site in California's Sierra National Forest.
Twenty evacuees were taken to hospitals suffering from burns, the Madera County Sheriff's Department said, as the Creek Fire rapidly grew.
"We're completely trapped. There's fire on all sides, all around us," said Jeremy Remington, as he stood on a beach surrounded by fire in the Mammoth Pool Reservoir in a video posted on Twitter. Remington was later airlifted to safety, local news reported.
Almost 15,000 firefighters were battling some two dozen fires across the state, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.
Three major fires, including the Creek Fire, were burning in Fresno, San Bernardino and San Diego counties, the agency said in a statement, adding it had increased staffing in preparation for "critical fire weather".
Almost 15,000 firefighters are battling some two dozen fires across the state of California amid record temperatures. Photo: BBC screenshot
The San Diego County Sheriff's Department issued a voluntary evacuation order on Sunday afternoon as the Valley Fire raged unchecked on the eastern edge of the metropolitan area of more than 3 million people.
"The sky is so thick by my house; the sky is a dirty brown cloud and I live about 25 minutes to the west of the fire," Twitter user Cris Mel said in a post. "It's kind of a struggle to breathe."
A dangerous heat wave baked areas of the western United States through the weekend, and many locations in California registered record-high temperatures on Sunday.
The temperature reached 49C on Sunday afternoon in Los Angeles County, a record for the National Weather Service office that covers the metropolitan area.
"This is a historic heatwave for southwestern CA and one that will be remembered for a long time," the service said in a statement.
Photo: BBC screenshot
State officials repeated calls to Californians to turn off appliances and lights to help avoid blackouts from an overwhelmed power grid.
Southern California Edison, which services five million customer accounts in the region, was advising customers of potential rotating outages.
Rotating outages in which utilities purposely cut power temporarily to avoid broader outages are rare. They last occurred in the region in August. Before that, they had not occurred in 20 years, said SCE spokesmen Reggie Kumar.
- Reuters / BBC
