California is burning!

An air tanker drops fire retardant at a
 containment line northeast of Lower Lake, California. 

California is burning.

The state has nine active wildfires as large as 10 hectares or more, including the massive Clayton fire north of San Francisco that forced nearly 1500 residents to flee their homes after it erupted Saturday in dry conditions created by the state's extreme drought. On Sunday the blaze doubled in size.

"The winds really kicked up, and the fire crossed over tentative lines in place [to slow its advance] and started impacting a whole new area," Suzie Blankenship, a spokeswoman for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, said Monday. "Once it creates that momentum, it really moves. They had a good handle on it. We had this fire contained at 5 per cent Saturday. But today it's still 5 per cent. It tells you that the fire keeps moving and moving and moving in different directions."

Cal Fire, as the department is known, reported Monday that more than 3800 fires have scorched over 45,000 ha of state land since January. That's 20 per cent more fires than at this point last year, and well above the state's five-year average of 3200 fires and 85,900 acres for the same time span.

Read the story in today’s Melbourne Age - “Wildfires north of San Francisco threaten California, force 1500 to evacuate.”