State Of Emergency: Watch California Firefighters Escape Inferno

CALIFORNIA — With California in a state of emergency due to three massive fires burning in Northern California, firefighters from all over the state pitched in to help battle wildfires large enough to create their own weather.

In all three fires, crews have been fighting to save lives and property amid steep terrain, extreme heat and tinderbox conditions fueled by one of the worst droughts in California's history. Over the weekend, dramatic footage from the blazes emerged showing firefighters narrowly escaping a dome of flames and wild animals fleeing for their lives.

In one heart-stopping video shared by the UC Davis Fire Department, a fire truck makes its way through a blinding inferno while protecting a housing development threatened by the Tamarack Fire in Alpine County.

The Tamarack Fire, which began in Alpine County South of Lake Tahoe has burned more than 66,000 acres along the California-Nevada border and was 27 percent contained as of Sunday night, according to Cal Fire.

The Tamarack fire continued to burn through timber and chaparral and threatened communities on both sides of the California-Nevada state line. The fire, sparked by lightning July 4 in Alpine County, has destroyed at least 10 buildings and sent residents and wild animals fleeing for safety.

Heavy smoke from that blaze and the Dixie fire lowered visibility and may at times ground aircraft providing support for fire crews. The air quality south of Lake Tahoe and across the state line into Nevada deteriorated to very unhealthy levels.

Overnight Saturday, the monstrous Dixie Fire in Butte and Plumas counties merged with the Fly Fire near Indian Wells and Paxton combining to leave 190,625 acres of destruction in their wake. The blaze was just 21 percent contained Sunday.

The Dixie Fire has been burning since July 14, destroying 16 structures and threatening more than 10,700 homes and commercial buildings as of Sunday, according to Cal Fire officials.

A large swath of the west side of Lake Almanor in Plumas County has been forced to evacuate as “Extreme fire behavior is expected again today,” Cal Fire warned Sunday.

More than 85 large wildfires were burning around the country, most of them in Western states, and they had burned over 1.4 million acres (2,135 square miles, or more than 553,000 hectares).

The Associated Press contributed to this report.