California firefighters battled destructive wildfires Monday as a lengthening heat wave roasted the state.

Thousands of homes were at risk and air quality deteriorated in areas affected by smoke.

The National Weather Service blanketed the state in warnings of excessive heat and high fire danger, including the threat from lightning strikes.

The current heatwave broiling Californians like no event in decades is also elevating the risk for another potential disaster in the weeks ahead: wildfires.

While heat and dry conditions have contributed to the Lake and Ranch fires burning now in Los Angeles County, fear of larger blazes looms in the weeks ahead. As a result of climate change, California sees more than twice as many fall days with “fire weather” as it did a generation ago. The current heatwave raises the odds of “wildfires later in 2020, that’s for sure,” says Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at UCLA and the National Center for Atmospheric Research.

A wildfire in mountains east of Los Angeles that has forced thousands of people from their homes was sparked by a malfunctioning diesel vehicle, fire officials said Monday.

The vehicle spewed burning carbon from its exhaust system, igniting several fires Friday on Oak Glen Road in Cherry Valley, and authorities were asking anyone who may have seen such a vehicle at the time to contact investigators, according to a statement from the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

The blaze in Riverside County, among several wildfires across California, had consumed nearly 42 square miles of dry brush and chaparral since it broke out Friday evening, fire officials said.

A wildfire in rural central California grew larger but firefighters also increased containment, authorities said.

Low humidity and hot temperatures have raised fire danger in large portions of the state.

The Mineral Fire in western Fresno County expanded to more than 28,500 acres and was 62% contained.

New findings point to need for home improvements that resist embers, the cause of up to 90 percent of wildfire ignitions

Researchers identified key factors influencing the survivability of structures during a wildfire after surveying the devastation in Paradise, Calif. following the 2018 Camp Fire, the deadliest and most costly on record in the state, and data from six other California wildfire events in 2017-2018,

California firefighters are battling large wildfires in Santa Clara and Los Angeles counties.

A fire that has burned more than 2.3 square miles north of Gilroy was 15% contained as of Monday, and a smaller fire east of Morgan Hill was 70% contained as of Monday, KRON-TV reported.

California regulators approved PG&E Corp.’s $58 billion reorganization plan, bringing the power giant another step closer to exiting the biggest utility bankruptcy in U.S. history.

The state’s Public Utilities Commission unanimously voted in favor of PG&E’s proposal after the company agreed to revamp its board and governance structure, submit to greater regulatory oversight and create local operating units to ensure a greater focus on safety.

(TNS) — As forecasters predict higher-than-normal chances of large fires in Northern California this year — as well as the usual risk of “large significant” burning in Southern California — fire authorities are growing increasingly concerned over their ability to muster a large, healthy force of firefighters in the face of COVID-19.

Realizing that wildfire smoke will steadily impair a firefighter’s immune system, and that traditional base camps can magnify the risk of infection, federal, state and county officials are urging a blitzkrieg approach to wildfires that will rely heavily on the use of aircraft.

The California Catastrophe Response Council, which oversees the Wildfire Fund, has formally named the California Earthquake Authority the fund’s administrator.

The Wildfire Fund was established by the California Legislature, under Assembly Bill 1054 and Assembly Bill 111, and was signed into law by Gov. Gavin Newsom on July 12, 2019. At that time, CEA was designated the fund’s interim administrator until the nine-member California Catastrophe Response Council could be formed and appoint an administrator.

Pacific Gas & Electric said it will plead guilty to 84 counts of involuntary manslaughter in connection with the 2018 fire in Northern California that killed 84 people and decimated three towns.

The utility said in a statement will also admit to a single count of unlawfully starting a fire.