SAN FRANCISCO — Mired in a dry, sweltering heat that has baked the brush and timber into parched fuel, California is on fire again, with blazes threatening communities up and down the West Coast.
Tens of thousands of people evacuated their homes early Wednesday as wildfires raged out of control, this time after an unusual series of thunderstorms swept through the region with more than 20,000 lightning strikes acting as lit matches to piles of kindling. Authorities said they were tracking and battling at least 92 known wildfires spanning more than 200,000 acres across California. Many of the fires are largely uncontained or not contained at all.
