At least nine people have died in 48 hours in wildfires tearing through America's West Coast - including a baby whose pregnant mum remains critical after suffering third degree burns to half of her body.
An apocalyptic red haze has engulfed cities across California, Oregon and Washington with firefighters ordering evacuations as communities are destroyed by more than 200 blazes.
Four people died from fires in California, while four were killed in Oregon and a 1-year-old boy died in Washington state, police reported.
Thousands faced evacuation orders in the three states.
Uriel Hyland, aged one, perished after he and his parents Jamie, 26, and Jake, 31, were overrun in northeast Washington.
Okanogan County Sheriff Tony Hawley said the two parents were found in a river on Tuesday and rushed to a Seattle hospital, both with severe burns.
The pregnant mum underwent surgery with burns on 40 to 50 percent of her body, while her husband suffered burns to 25 percent of his body and needed arm surgery.
On a GoFundMe page set up by their family, it said they were "still critical at this point, but Jamie more so than Jake".
Other fatalities include Wyatt Tofte, aged 12, and his grandma Peggy Mosso, who died in a fire burning near the Santiam Valley community of Lyons, about 50 miles south of Portland, Oregon.
The boy was found dead with his dog inside a burned car, the Marion County Sheriff's Office said.
His mum remains in a critical condition in hospital due to serious burns.
Meanwhile, police have opened a criminal investigation into at least one Oregon blaze - the Almeda Fire that started in Ashland near the border with California, Ashland Police Chief Tighe O'Meara said.
The chief said investigators were treating the origins of the
Almeda fire as suspicious.
"We have good reason to believe that there was a human element to it," he said.
"So we're going to pursue it as a criminal investigation until we have reason to believe that it was otherwise."
One death has been reported near where that fire started in Medford, Oregon, on Tuesday.
Police in Medford as well as in Douglas County to the north
cautioned against rumors left-wing anti-fascists and right-wing Proud Boy arsonists were starting the fires.
County Sheriff Kory Honea said the remains of three victims were found in two separate locations in the Complex wildfire zone in Butte County, California, bringing the total death toll from this summer's devastating spate of California wildfires to at least 11.
Another person died in Siskiyou County in Northern
California, state fire authority Cal Fire reported, providing no
further details.
