• Wildfires have killed at least six people
• Prisons overwhelmed by Covid outbreaks and approaching fires
• Firefighters stretched thin as blazes grow rapidly
• Opinion: The climate crisis has already arrived. Just look to California’s abnormal wildfires
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4.27pm BST

Here’s a look at some website headlines – and links to local reporting – from around California…

San Francisco Chronicle: CZU August Lightning Complex fires force 64,600 to evacuate San Mateo, Santa Cruz counties

3.58pm BST

Sticking with the Associated Press, it has spoken to some residents affected by the fires:

Smoke and ash billowing from the fires have fouled the air throughout California’s scenic central coast and in San Francisco. The fires have destroyed at least 175 buildings, including homes, and threatened tens of thousands more.

Tim and Anne Roberts had gone to the beach with their two children on Monday, in order to avoid the smoke at their home in Boulder Creek in Santa Cruz county. They packed a change of clothes, their children’s school supplies and their passports, just in case.

The good news for Brookdale resident Larissa Eisenstein was that her five chickens, Kelly and the Nuggets, had been safely relocated into a stranger’s yard in a neighboring community.

The chicken evacuation came a day after Eisenstein, a Silicon Valley tech worker, was forced to leave them behind during an overnight evacuation. She fled with her cats Mochi and Mini, driving from one hotel to the next only to find they were full before landing in a safe place for some rest.

• Hundreds of fires, stoked by a searing heatwave, prompt governor to declare a state of emergency
• Latest California fire updates

Hundreds of fires are raging across California, forcing tens of thousands of residents – who were already facing blackouts and the coronavirus pandemic – to flee their homes. The flames, sparked by lightning and stoked by a searing heatwave and ferocious winds, have been moving quickly, overwhelming the state’s firefighters and first responders.

“It’s kind of an overwhelming fire siege,” said Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at UCLA’s Institute of the Environment and Sustainability.

• Cluster of wildfires in Napa, Sonoma and Solano counties cover an estimated 46,225 acres
• Lake fire in southern California has burned more than 21,000 acres

10.15pm BST

Three wild fires and more than 10,000 acres are currently burning out of control around the San Francisco Bay area, prompting officials to issue evacuation orders for residents living near the blazes.

Gov. Newsom said today that he has asked three states — Arizona, Nevada and Texas — to provide hundreds of fire engines to help contain the flames.

Evacuation Order expanded to include all areas west of County Road 306 west to Mendocino County line. Full length of County from Tehama County line south to Colusa County line. #GlennCounty #AugustComplex pic.twitter.com/AlAizoPraM

#LNULightningComplex - New evacuation orders for the Green Valley area in Solano Co, everything west of Suisun Valley Rd & north of Rockville Rd, to the county line. #Fairfield #Vacaville #HennesseyFire pic.twitter.com/eT9Krot7mD

9.57pm BST

Wildfires in northern California have made the air quality in the San Francisco Bay Area the worst in the world.

As fires blaze through eight of the nine counties surrounding San Francisco, smoke is drifting across the region and light ash falls from the sky.

It’s raining ash in California, forcing us to wear a different kind of mask than we wear for the pandemic when we go buy the generator we need for either rolling blackouts or preemptive outages so we can work from home if we haven’t been evacuated or our house hasn't burned down

What it’s like to live in California right now.

My car was JUST washed and all of this is ash from the wildfires surround us. ITS LITERALLY RAINING ASHES!!!! pic.twitter.com/XB4iLaG9l5

Smoke and Ash in San Jose CA from fires in California pic.twitter.com/Vxqa2leEdL

Fire explodes in size as crews battle the flames in triple-digit heat in mountains east of Los Angeles

Thousands of people were under evacuation orders Sunday after a wildfire in mountains east of Los Angeles exploded in size as crews battled the flames in triple-digit heat.

The fire, dubbed the Apple Fire by local firefighters, was straddling Riverside and San Bernardino counties and consumed more than 23sq miles (about 60sq km) of dry brush and timber, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.