A state of emergency has been declared in four Californian counties as wildfires burn throughout the state.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said residents should heed evacuation orders near several large fires in Placer, Monterey, Los Angeles and Mariposa counties.
He says eight fires are burning in California, the largest one in the foothills north of Los Angeles. That blaze has scorched 134 square miles and destroyed at least 18 homes, threatening 12,000 more.
The five-day-old wildfire burning out of control in the Los Angeles foothills and forest claimed its first victims yesterday, two firefighters whose vehicle plummeted off the side of a road.
The California Governor rushed back from Senator Edward Kennedy's funeral to survey the state's worst fire, warning residents to heed evacuation orders for the "very dangerous" blaze.
Flames could be seen stretching 15 miles above the heavily populated foothills, where an estimated 2,000 homes were under evacuation. Smoke mushroomed into huge clouds, some 20,000 feet high and visible from hundreds of miles away.
"What we have seen today was extreme fire behavior once again," Fire Commander Mike Dietrich said. "But there were excellent saves made in the foothill communities, some darn good firefighting." The two dead firefighters were from Los Angeles County Fire and had been working deep in the Angeles National Forest yesterday afternoon when their vehicle careened down a slope.
At nightfall, firefighters focused on Mount Wilson, the site of transmission towers for television and radio broadcasters and emergency services. Planes dumped water in the area, but Mr Dietrich said the fire could reach the towers late last night or early this morning.
More than 2,800 firefighters were on the ground, coming from as far away as Wyoming and Montana, trying to build more than 100 miles of fire protection lines.
The fire that started on Wednesday above the exclusive community of La Canada Flintridge is only 5 percent contained and officials expected that, with hot temperatures and low humidity, it would grow larger. The cause of the fire is being investigated.