Thousands of northern California homes were threatened Sunday by the largest wildfire in the United States, and officials warned that the danger of new blazes erupting across the West was high because of unstable weather. Smoke comes out from under the front steps of a house that burned in northern California on Sunday. The Parleys Canyon Fire, estimated at just under 2.4 square kilometres, calmed significantly overnight and homes were no longer threatened, officials said Sunday. Smoke also drove air pollution levels to unhealthy or very unhealthy levels in parts of northern California, Oregon and Idaho. In southeastern Oregon, two wildfires started by lightning on Thursday spread rapidly through a landscape sucked dry by extreme drought.

Source: CBC News August 15, 2021 22:07 UTC