Highway to hell
Desperate drivers flee city as 560 deadly fires rage across California
Wildfires that have killed at least six people and injured 43 across California forced desperate drivers to flee a city.
Motorists were seen speeding to safety as f lames raged near a motorway outside Vacaville, where 75,000 residents were forced to hit the road.
Exhausted firefighters tackled 560 separate blazes that have ravaged the US state for days.
Forests are aflame and thousands of homes face being razed – with more than 771,000 acres of land gutted so far.
Pictures also showed boats burning at a dock in Markley Cove Resort, near Napa.
Residents in Santa Cruz were tackling flames to try to save their properties.
The worst outbreaks are in the mountains to the south and east of San Francisco.
Governor of California Gavin Newsom has urged president Donald Trump to sign a major disaster declaration. And he pleaded with Canada and Australia to send help for his 12,000 exhausted f iref ighters, who have been battling the fires with helicopters and air tankers.
He said: “We simply haven’t seen anything like this in many, many years.”
Newsom added that they had received help from 10 states, who had sent crews. He said: “We have more people but it’s not enough.”
Speaking about a cluster of blazes in the heart of a wine region north of San Francisco, Cal Fire Division chief Ben Nicholls said there were more than 1000 firefighters tackling that outbreak.
He added: “I’m happy to say there are resources all around the fire today.
“We have engines on all four sides of it working hand-in-hand with the bul ldozers to start containing this fire, putting it to bed.”
Fourteen other US states have reported wildfires following a heatwave, which has brought temperatures of more than 37C and a string of lightning strikes.
Lightning- sparked blazes in northern California spread on Friday to become some of the largest in the state’s history.
Last week, Trump said he had told officials in California: “You gotta clean your floors, you gotta clean your forests – there are many, many years of leaves and broken trees and they’re like, like, so flammable, you touch them and it goes up.”
He added: “I’ve been telling them this now for three years but they don’t want to listen.”