In southern California, thousands more people have been ordered to evacuate their homes, bringing the number of people chased away by the wind-whipped flames to at least 300,000.
Touring an evacuee camp in San Diego, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has pledged to do everything in his power to assist the firefighting effort and help those who have lost their homes.
"...We have now 16 fires in California here, we have six-thousand firefighters that are fighting, we have thousands of pieces of equipment and trucks and everything like that..."
US President George W. Bush has declared an emergency for seven counties of California, a move that will speed disaster-relief efforts.
The dozen wildfires have killed one person and injured dozens of others. The blazes have also consumed about 100,000 hectares of land.
