Thousands evacuated as fire rages in baking California

The Cherry Valley blaze came amid 40C heat in the US state (Picture: AP)

Around 8,000 Californians were urged to evacuate their homes in America this weekend as firefighters struggled to contain a massive wildfire amid soaring temperatures.  

The ‘Apple Fire’ near Palm Springs flared up on Saturday, spreading uncontained across more than 4,000 acres, the County fire department said.

The blaze, which began as two adjacent fires, was reported shortly before 5pm on Friday in Cherry Valley, near the city of Beaumont in Riverside County. Flames leapt along ridge tops and came close to homes while some 375 firefighters attacked it from the ground and air, authorities said.

But it doubled in size overnight to leave around 18 square miles in flames – and firefighters struggling to battle it because the charred ground was too hot to walk on.

Photographs shared by the fire department on Twitter showed thick plumes of smoke filling the sky over the mountainous region.

About 7,800 people were told to evacuate more than 2,500 homes, according to fire officials.

Hundreds of people in foothill neighbourhoods north of Beaumont fell under mandatory evacuation orders.

At least one home has been destroyed by Saturday evening, though an unspecified number of homes were in the path of the flames and not in imminent danger, CalFire captain Fernando Herrera told the Riverside Press-Enterprise.

Smoke rises from Apple Fire in Cherry Valley (Picture: AP)

An air tanker drops fire retardant on Saturday, when temperatures hit 41C (Picture: AP)

Diane Brickley comes back home to take care of her goats after she was evacuated (Picture: AP)

A car burns amid the fire, which doubled in size overnight after first being reported (Picture: AP)

Hand crews lines up in California, where firefighters said the charred ground was too hot to walk on (Picture: AP)

Smoke filled the sky around the blaze (Picture: AP)

A firefighter walks back to his truck near an ash plume (Picture: AFP)

Flames flare behind fire trucks (Picture: AP)

A firefighter casts a shadow next to a brush fire (Picture: AP)

An ash plume towers into the sky near Banning, California (Picture: AFP)

He said firefighters were having difficulty assessing the damage because the charred ground was too hot to walk on.

The National Weather Service issued an excessive heat warning as Southern California found itself in the midst of a heat wave.

Temperatures hit 41C in Palm Springs — a community about 75 miles east of Los Angeles — by Saturday afternoon.

The fire had grown from 700 acres on Friday evening to 4,125 acres by Saturday evening and was 0% contained, according to the County fire department and the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire).

In 2018, the US state experienced its most destructive season of fires yet – leaving more than 100 people dead, thousands of homes destroyed and billions of dollars worth of damage.

Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.

For more stories like this, check our news page.

MORE: Nearly 3,000,000,000 animals killed or displaced in Australia’s wildfires