Where have the fires affected California?
Wildfires have torn through northern California’s wine region, forcing 20,000 people to flee from Napa, Sonoma and Yuba counties.
Governor Jerry Brown declared a state of emergency for the three counties, which encompass some of the state’s prime wine-making areas.
He later extended the declaration to include four more northern California counties and Orange County in Southern California, and requested a US presidential disaster declaration to support state and local firefighting resources.
Seven people have died in Sonoma, with two further fatalities in Napa County and one in Mendocino County.
The death toll is the highest for a single cluster of fires in a decade, officials have said, and is expected to climb even further.
Santa Rosa is one of the worst-hit areas, with entire blocks left in smoking ruins and vegetation burned to the ground.
The town’s mayor Mayor Chris Coursey said at a news conference: “I’m lucky, my house is fine. My family is fine. My city is not.”
Billowing smoke has drifted south into the San Francisco Bay area, triggering an air quality alert.
Are the fires still burning?
More than 60 fires were burning in California as of 11am BST, according to the California fire department.
This number includes unconnected blazes in other areas of the state.
CalFire spokesman Daniel Berlant said that wind gusts in excess of 50 miles per hour have rapidly spread 15 separate wildfires across 73,000 acres in northern California since erupting late Sunday night.
The fires have destroyed about 1,500 homes and commercial buildings across the state.