California wildfires trigger state of emergency after devouring over 10,000 acres of land

More than 3,000 people flee homes as authorities fear another summer of devastating blazes

A state of emergency has been declared in Northern California as wildfires forced thousands of people to flee their homes.

More than 20 buildings have been destroyed and as many as 600 others are at risk as a blaze chars 10,500 acres across Lake County, around 120 miles north of San Francisco.

The governor of California, Jerry Brown, called a state of emergency after around 3,000 were evacuated from the area after the fire broke out on Saturday.

Officials said 230 firefighters were battling the Lake County fire in a rugged area that made it difficult to get equipment close to the blaze.

It is the latest devastating fire to rip through the isolated and impoverished county of just 65,000 people in the past few years.

“I think we’re all just so traumatised and overwhelmed with all these fires year after year, this whole community is at a breaking point,” said Terri Gonsalves, who evacuated her home at about midnight on Sunday.

In 2015, a series of fires in the area destroyed 2,000 buildings and killed four people. An arsonist started a fire which wiped out 300 buildings the following year.

Officials have warned unusually hot weather, high winds and highly flammable vegetation starved by drought is creating similar conditions to those which created California’s most destructive fire year in 2017.

Jim Steele, an elected supervisor, said Lake County’s firefighting equipment was antiquated, while poor roads in and out of the region hindered response times.

He said the area has also been susceptible to fire for many decades because of the dense brush and trees situated there, but the severity of the latest blazes is unexpected.

“What’s happened with the more warming climate is we get low humidity and higher winds and then when we get a fire that’s worse than it’s been in those 50 years,” Mr Steele added.

Authorities on Monday afternoon lifted evacuation orders in Tehama County, where two wildfires were burning. Multiple homes and businesses in the city of Red Bluff were destroyed.

Residents also fled a wildfire in Shasta County.

No cause has been determined for any of the fires.

Last year, California’s costliest fires killed 44 people and tore through the state’s wine country in October, causing an estimated $10bn (£7.6bn) in damage.

While the weekend’s blazes were the first major fires of the season to hit California, others have raged throughout the west of America for weeks.

Earlier this month, a Colorado wildfire forced residents of more than 2,000 homes to evacuate. The last evacuees returned home last week.

Moderate to extreme drought conditions are currently affecting Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico and Utah, as well as parts of Nevada, California, Oregon, Oklahoma and Texas, according to the US Drought Monitor.

Additional reporting by AP