At 443.4 square miles and growing, the Mendocino Complex blaze is now California’s largest ever wildfire. It has forced thousands from their homes and destroyed over 80 residences, rapidly becoming the most pressing of the 18 wildfires raging across the state.

The blaze is now larger than New York city and is approaching the size of Los Angeles.

The Mendocino Complex fire is actually made up of two fires on either side of Clear Lake. Hot, windy weather and extremely dry vegetation has fuelled the fires, causing them to spread quickly since they started on 27 July. The gap between the two fires is now less than 3km.

The 3,900 crews battling the Mendocino Complex on Monday were focusing on keeping flames from breaking through fire lines on a ridge above the foothill communities of Nice, Lucerne, Glen Haven, and Clearlake Oaks, said Tricia Austin, a spokesperson for Cal Fire, the state firefighting agency.

The Mendocino Complex fire has surpassed the size of the Thomas fire to become the largest fire in Californian history. The Thomas fire broke out in December 2017 and scorched more than 440 square miles before it was fully contained more than a month later.



Three of the largest wildfires in California’s history have occurred in the past 12 months.

Sources: Satellite imagery from Copernicus (Sentinel-2), fire perimeters and largest wildfires data from CalFire, building footprint data from Microsoft.

Photographs: AFP PHOTO / NOAH BERGERNOAH BERGER/AFP/Getty Images