Mendocino Complex fire: California’s largest ever wildfire in pictures
TWIN fires burning on California’s coast have met and exploded into a raging inferno nearly the size of New York.
California wildfires: Flames pour from homes as blaze spreads
Around than 3,900 fire personnel, including 441 firefighters are now battling the Mendocino Complex Fire, a blaze which has become the state’s largest wildfire in history.
The blaze is expected to burn for the rest of the month, with 43C temperatures and gusty conditions fanning the flames.
The Mendocino Complex grew to span 290,692 acres by Tuesday morning, with barely a third of it contained, making it an area larger than New York City.
It is the largest of eight major fires burning out of control across California, prompting U.S. President Donald Trump to declare a "major disaster" in the state.
California wildfires are being magnified and made so much worse by the bad environmental laws which aren't allowing massive amount of readily available water to be properly utilized
"California wildfires are being magnified and made so much worse by the bad environmental laws which aren't allowing massive amount of readily available water to be properly utilized," Trump wrote on Twitter, without providing supporting evidence.
A Cal Fire spokesman declined to comment on Trump's claims but said crews did not lack water to fight the flames.
Environmental activists and some politicians say the intensity of the state's wildfire season could be linked in part to climate change.
The size of the fire has surpassed that of last year's Thomas Fire, which burned 281,893 acres in Santa Barbara and Ventura counties and destroyed more than 1,000 structures.
Nearly half of the ten largest California wildfires on record occurred in the last decade.
The Mendocino Complex has burnt 75 homes and forced the evacuation of thousands of people. Fire officials had hoped to extinguish the fire by mid-August, but pushed that date to early September on Tuesday.