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Nearly 30,000 people have been evacuated from their homes in Northern California as an enormous wildfire rips through the region amid a sweltering heatwave on the US west coast.
The annual Fourth of July fireworks celebration was cancelled and a state of emergency declared as the fire destroyed more than 3,500 acres of land near the city of Oroville, about an hour outside California’s capital Sacramento since it began on Tuesday morning.
Some 1,500 emergency workers have been involved in containing the fire in Butte County.
Firefighters lined roads to keep the flames from reaching homes while helicopters dumped water on Wednesday. By 9am local time the blaze was still zero percent contained, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, or Cal Fire.
Four firefighters responding to the blaze and as many civilian have been reported injured in the fire.
Pictures from the area showed houses, vehicles and woodland engulfed in bright yellow and orange flames.
Oroville, home to 20,000 people, declared a state of emergency on Tuesday night after the fire destroyed several homes.
The cause of the fire is being investigated. Red flag warnings for critical fire weather conditions, including gusty northerly winds and low humidity levels, were in effect when it erupted.
The warnings were expected to remain in place until 8pm PT on Wednesday, said Garret Sjolund, the Butte County chief for Cal Fire.
“The conditions out there that are in our county this summer are much different than we have experienced the last two summers,” Mr Sjolund was quoted as saying by the Associated Press.
“The fuels are very dense, brush is dry. And as you can see, any wind will, move a fire out very quickly.”
Mayor David Pittman said there was a “significant drop in the fire activity” on Wednesday and he was hopeful some people could be allowed to return home soon.
High temperatures have made the situation more challenging as Cal Fire asked the public to take extra precautions.
“The combination of events has presented a huge challenge for firefighters,” Ed Fletcher, an information officer at Cal Fire, said. “You are asking people to hike up a mountain when it’s 108F outside.”
Temperatures in Sacramento were set to reach between 105F and 115F (40.5C and 46.1C) and remain high throughout the week, the National Weather Service said.
Authorities warned of consequences for any illegal use of fireworks during the Fourth of July holiday on Thursday.
“Don’t be an idiot, cause a fire and create more problems for us,” said Butte County sheriff Kory L Honea. ”No one in the community is going to want that. And we certainly don’t want this."
California governor Gavin Newsom’s office announced on Tuesday that federal funding had been approved to help with firefighting efforts.
Mr Newsom activated the State Operations Center earlier this week to coordinate the response, dispatch mutual aid and support communities as they respond to threats of wildfire and excessive heat.
More than a dozen other fires, most of them small, were active in California, according to Cal Fire.
