California battling deadly wildfires as heat wave slams the world

California

firefighters on Monday were gaining ground on a massive wildfire that has killed six people and destroyed hundreds of homes and businesses , while rescuers searched for at least seven people who were missing .

The Carr Fire ignited a week ago outside Redding , about 150 miles ( 240 km ) north of Sacramento , and doubled in size over the weekend , charring an area the size of Denver and forcing 38,000 people to flee their homes. Two firefighters , a 70-year-old woman , and her two young great-grandchildren are among the dead.

California

is bearing the brunt of an extreme run of wildfires across the U.S. West , with erratic winds and record temperatures charging blazes that have blackened nearly 410,000 acres in the state, the highest year-to-date level in a decade .

“I’ve been a lifelong resident of this community, and I’ve never seen a fire with such destruction here in this area ever before,” Shasta County Supervisor Leonard Moty said of the Carr Fire during a press briefing.

The blaze is the deadliest of the 90 wildfires burning across the United States. Collectively, wildfires have scorched 4.6 million acres ( 1.8 million hectares ) of land so far this year, 24% more than the 10-year average for the time period, according to federal data.

Nearly 3,400 firefighters battling the Carr Fire have begun to gain control of it, cutting containment lines around 20% of its perimeter by Monday morning, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection ( Cal Fire ). For much of the weekend, the fire was just 5% contained.

Firefighters were struggling to control the fire’s western flank, where terrain is steep and the air thick with smoke, fire officials said.

“That’s where we need to fly,” Dominic Polito , of the Escondido Fire Department , said in a telephone interview. “We can still use helicopters, but we can’t use the fixed-wing aircraft.”

Gale-force winds that drove the fire late last week have eased to moderate speeds, but temperatures are again expected to top 100 Fahrenheit ( 37.8 Celsius ), according to the National Weather Service .

Nearly 1,000 homes and other buildings have been destroyed by the 99,000-acre ( 155 square miles ) blaze, Cal Fire said. The fire leveled the town of Keswick , home to 450 people. It also sparked an effort to rescue people’s horses and livestock in the rugged region, a popular fishing destination.

Some 260 National Guard troops and 100 police officers were stationed in evacuated neighborhoods to guard against looting.

Another California fire prompted a closure of much of Yosemite National Park last week, while a third forced mass evacuations from the mountain resort community of Idyllwild , east of Los Angeles .

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