Twin blazes tearing through northern California fueled by dry vegetation and hot, windy weather have now grown to become the largest wildfire in state history.
The Mendocino Complex Fire expanded nearly 80 percent over the weekend and has now scorched more than 283,000 acres north of San Francisco, forcing more than 20,000 people to evacuate and destroying at least 75 homes so far.
Firefighters are continuing to battle the rapidly-advancing blaze that is considered to be around 30 percent contained as of Monday night.
Comprised of the River and Ranch fires, the Mendocino Complex has now surpassed last year's Thomas Fire, which torched 281,893 acres in Ventura and Santa Barbara counties, as the largest fire in California history.
Cal Fire officials said water-dropping aircraft made some progress against one of the fires in the complex over the weekend, while the other has grown substantially, spreading into the Mendocino National Forest.
Across the state more than 14,000 firefighters are working to contain 16 major fires fueled by persistent hot, dry and windy conditions following years of severe drought.
A brand new blaze called the Holy Fire was ignited on Monday in Orange County, quickly expanding to more than 1,200 acres.
To the north, the deadly Carr Fire has entered its third week of destruction in the scenic Shasta-Trinity region north of Sacramento, scorching more than 164,400 acres of land since July 23.
So far the Carr Fire has left seven people dead and razed more than 1,600 buildings, more than half of them family homes, state officials said Monday.
Cal Fire deputy chief Scott McLean described the wildfires as 'extremely fast, extremely aggressive [and] extremely dangerous'.
'Look how big it 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,' he said.
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