Wildfire season has escalated quickly in the American West. Here's background to help you understand what's going on. First, recent updates:
- More than two dozen major fires are scorching California and taxing the state's firefighting capacity, sparked by an unprecedented lightning siege that dropped nearly 11,000 strikes over several days. The fires have destroyed 175 structures, including homes, and are threatening 50,000 more.
- In Oregon, fires are burning from the Columbia River Gorge to the California border. Oregon Gov. Kate Brown has declared a state of emergency because of what she called the imminent threat of wildfire across state.
- Washington Gov. Jay Inslee has issued a statewide emergency proclamation on Wednesday because of multiple wildfires in Central and Eastern Washington, as well as the Olympic Peninsula.
- A wildfire burning in remote terrain in western Colorado is the second largest in the state's history, fire officials said.
View a map of current fires and learn about how they start and spread
