Malibu is the latest California town to be evacuated, as three separate wildfires tear through the state.
The Woolsey Fire threatening the beachside town is currently sweeping through the Santa Monica mountains, after making it across the freeway on Friday morning.
On Friday afternoon, officials announced that Malibu’s 13,000 residents would need to leave their homes.
A further 75,000 homes have already been evacuated, according to local media.
Thousand Oaks, a town still reeling from a mass shooting that took place there earlier this week, is among the areas that have already been evacuated because of the Woolsey fire and nearby Hill Fire.
A teen centre which was serving as a meeting point for those affected by the shooting was soon repurposed again, becoming an evacuation centre.
A California fire official said another blaze in northern California nearly quadrupled in size overnight.
Captain Scott McLean of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection said the fire near the town of Paradise has grown to nearly 110 square miles.
That blaze has devastated the town of 27,000 people – with homes, supermarkets, restaurants and a retirement home among the buildings destroyed – and is moving north into Sierra Nevada foothill communities.
Speaking on Thursday, fire captain Scott McLean said: “Pretty much the community of Paradise is destroyed, it’s that kind of devastation.”
Resident Gina Oviedo said: “Things started exploding. People started getting out of their vehicles and running.”
Another woman, Whitney Vaughan, told CNN that she saw one man “sprinting past our house carrying a little baby, running as fast as he could” while fleeing.
Butte County Sheriff’s Office said an evacuation ordered had been issued for the small communities of Stirling City and Inskip.
The fire also reached the edge of Chico, a city of 90,000 people.
The cause of the fires is unclear, but dry conditions and unpredictable winds have made things difficult for the 2,2000 firefighters working hard to contain them.
Governor-elect Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency on Thursday and has asked for federal funds to help those affected.