Tonight, record high temperatures across the country are fueling wildfires in fifteen states, the largest, in Northern California. Smoke now visible from the international space station. The oak fire exploded over the weekend as it burned out of control through a bone-dry forest. Firefighters have battled the flames for four straight days. The fire has burned nearly seventeen thousand acres and its ten percent contained. Thousands of homes and businesses in a mountain community near Yosemite National Park remained under evacuation orders. Smoke has spread hundreds of miles away reaching Lake Tahoe, parts of Nevada, and the San Francisco Bay area.

Progress here on the frontline is measured by minute. And this evening, this fire continues to explode as it rips through dry vegetation. It’s also incredibly unpredictable even for firefighters. More than twenty-five hundred firefighters are now on the line, working around the clock in intense heat and on steep terrain to put down so called Oak fire from both the ground and air. The vegetation is bone-dry. It doesn’t take much to turn it into fire like this. There has been a stroke of some luck. The wind has remained calm. It only takes a gust though to turn fire like this into a wall of flames. The fire has already incinerated more than sixteen thousand acres, destroyed seven structures, including homes. But that number is expected to rise. More than six thousand people are under evacuation orders. Years of drought across the western US and high temperatures over recent days had fueled flames reaching fifteen feet into the sky. And while wind conditions remain favorable there is the threat of gust picking up tonight as well as dry lightning, which could ignite this tinderbox.