Photos: The wildfires consuming southern California are a vision of hell

Fueled by warm, dry Santa Ana winds, wildfires have spread across southern California, blazing a path through major population centers.

The largest, the Thomas Fire, has already cut through 65,000 acres as of this morning (Dec. 6), the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection said. According to USA Today, there has been no reported containment of the spreading fire. Two others, the Rye and Creek fires, have burned more than 15,000 acres combined.

These blazes have yet to reach the scale of the massive wildfires that scorched large swaths of northern California’s wine country earlier this year. Those burned over 200,000 acres, causing a billion dollars in damage and are blamed for dozens of deaths. These recent fires, with increasing proximity to large population centers around southern California, have lead to a series of evacuations and road closures. The images present the desperate efforts to save homes and show the damage done to the natural environment and to man-made structures.