Blazes raging in forests and woodlands across California have taken the life of a firefighter and forced hundreds of people to flee their homes as an army of firefighters continue to battle them from the air and the ground.

Some 8,000 firefighters were attempting to subdue them, something made incredibly difficult by several years of drought that have dried out California.

In the Modoc National Forest, about a hundred miles (160 kilometers) south of Oregon, David Ruhl, an engine captain from South Dakota's Black Hills National Forest, was killed fighting a fast-moving blaze. He had vanished Thursday while fighting the 800-acre (325-hectare) fire and his body wasn't recovered until Friday.

...