California fires 2018 LIVE: Latest fire MAP as firefighters drafted – only 30pc contained

Two fires about 100 miles (161 kilometres) north of San Francisco are just 30 percent contained as of Tuesday, fire officials said.

So far, the growing blazes have scorched 428 square miles (1,108 square kilometres) and have destroyed 75 homes. 

Another 9,000 buildings are threatened by the fires, which burn just 14 miles apart.

The two fires now cover an area larger than a deadly wildfire burning near Redding, California.

The Army is drafting in 200 active-duty soldiers and emergency fire crews to help battle the raging wildfires in the Western USA.

Soldiers from Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Washington, will get three days of training starting on Thursday and will all be deployed to the same fire. 

Here is the latest news and live updates on the California fires.

9.00am update: Temperatures to soar – fanning the flames even more

Temperatures could reach 43C (110F) in Northern California over the next few days.

Gusty winds will also help to fan the flames of the complex, a National Weather Service meteorologist said.

“Rapidly-rising air caused by the extreme heat helps the fire to grow explosively as the fire will create its own wind, as well as fire vortices (firenadoes) and tree crowning (when the leaves get engulfed by flames), even on otherwise calm days,” AccuWeather Meteorologist and volunteer firefighter Evan Duffey said.

The 3,900 crews battling the Mendocino Complex on Monday were focusing on keeping flames from breaking through fire lines on a ridge above the foothill communities of Nice, Lucerne, Glen Haven, and Clearlake Oaks, a spokeswoman for Cal Fire said.

8.50am update: US President Donald Trump declares 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 a massive amount of readily available water to be properly utilized,” Trump wrote on Twitter.

A California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection spokesman declined to comment on Trump’s tweet.

However, the official rebuffed the President’s suggestion that fire crews lacked water to fight the flames.

Environmental activists and some politicians say the intensity of this year’s wildfire season could be linked in part to climate change.- a phenomenon Donald Trump denies.

8.39am update: Mendocino Complex fire now the largest in history

The Mendocino Complex became the largest wildfire in history on Monday after the blaze grew to 283,800 acres (114,800 hectares) – and is still spreading.

The fire is currently raging at the southern tip of the Mendocino National Forest, where crews are battling to keep flames from descending into foothill communities.

The fire has now surpassed the Thomas Fire, which burned 281,893 acres in Santa Barbara and Ventura counties in 2017.

And as prime weather conditions are expected to persist, the blaze is expected to grow even bigger.

“Unfortunately, they’re not going to get a break anytime soon,” National Weather Service meteorologist Brian Hurley said of firefighters who had cut buffer lines around 30 percent of the blaze.

“It’s pretty doggone hot and dry, and it’s going to stay that way.”