California Wildfires: State Of Emergency Declared

The Governor of California has declared a state of emergency in Lake and Napa counties after wildfires forced thousands of people to flee their homes and left one person dead.

Up to 400 homes have been destroyed as thousands of firefighters struggle to contain the fires, which have been burning for five days in the Sierra Nevada mountains.

California's emergency chief Mark Ghilarducc said the fires were the most volatile he had seen in 30 years of emergency response work.

He said the main cause behind the fast-spreading fires was the dry conditions from the four-year drought.

One of the fires, dubbed the Valley Fire, has spread rapidly to engulf an area of around 25,000 acres in Lake County, north of San Francisco, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire) said.

Video shows a number of homes on fire in Middleton, one of several villages that were ordered to evacuate.

Four firefighters, who had been dropped off by helicopter, suffered second-degree burns as they built containment lines.

They were airlifted to UC Davis Medical Center in Sacramento and are in a stable condition.

About 100 miles to the southeast, another fire destroyed 86 homes in Amador and Calaveras counties, and scorched an estimated 65,000 acres.

The fire erupted on Wednesday near the former gold mining town of Jackson.

Flames from another blaze in Kings Canyon National Park in central California forced 3,500 people to evacuate their homes.

Firefighters have lit small fires in an area of giant sequoia trees in the park to remove vegetation and protect the grove from the wildfire.