The largest wildfire in the US swelled to nearly 600 square miles on Tuesday morning, bigger than the city of Los Angeles, fire officials in California said, as thousands of firefighters battled the blaze in a remote wilderness area north of Sacramento.
More than 5,000 firefighters from across California and other states were working around the clock to douse the Park Fire, burning in the state's Central Valley, about 90 miles (145 km) north of Sacramento, the capital. The fire grew to 383,600 acres (155,237 hectares), becoming the sixth-largest wildfire in Californian history.
The fire - fueled by dry grass, brush and timber - is fast-moving, said Fire Capt. Dan Collins of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection or Cal Fire.
"This fire has lots of fuel that is receptive to burning, and it's hard to get to," he said. "Our fire line is 260 miles around, that's the size of three Lake Tahoes. It can take two-three hours to get personnel in there over the terrain."