California wildfires: Shocking time lapse footage from satellite shows spread of deadly blaze

The fires have devastated the American west coast, with many people having to evacuate their homes

A view of the Californian wildfires from space has revealed the full extent of the devastation.

The fire’s quick spread was shown in a satellite timelapse, shared on Twitter by the Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere which is a research institution at Colorado State University.

The video showed the evolution of the wildfires over the 12 hours between 9:00am PT Tuesday morning to the evening, with the fires moving between Oregon and North California.

The image shows both the temperature of the fires, highlighted by the glowing hotspots, as well as the extent of the smoke along the coast.

Other aerial photographs show the aftermath of the blazes, capturing the charred remains of houses and landscapes in the towns across the American west.

Numerous wildfires burned in Oregon’s forested valleys and along the coast, causing mass evacuations.

Oregon Governor Kate Brown said communities have been “substantially destroyed” and warned there could be numerous fatalities.

Three people have died in California yesterday as a result of the fires. Since the middle of August, 11 people have died.

Experts have said that the fires are growing larger, and moving faster, than ever before.

Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at the University of California estimated the inferno had burned about 400 square miles in 24 hours.

"The unbelievable rates of spread now being observed on these fires - it is historically unprecedented," he tweeted.

The fires have also turned the skies in San Francisco and California a deep red and orange due to the smoke in the atmosphere blocking blue light. 

However, many people are finding the images near-impossible to capture with smartphone cameras as the software on their devices cannot capture the intensity of the scenes.