California battles hundreds of wildfires

As California faces some of the largest fires in state history, tens of thousands of people are under mass-evacuation orders, including in and around the San Francisco Bay area.

Firefighting forces are stretched thin.

Satellite images show thick white smoke covering a wide area across Sonoma County - adding to health risks faced by residents already struggling to stay safe amid the coronavirus pandemic.

With the source and sheer scale of the fires showing up in infra-red imaging.

Further south, fires forced the University of California at Santa Cruz to call for people to evacuate from campus.

Hundreds of fires are burning following a series of lightning strikes and a record heatwave across the state.

The biggest fires have already burnt across more than 600,000 acres - an area twice the size of Los Angeles - destroying hundreds of buildings, and killing at least four civilians and two emergency workers.