Joe McLean has lived in a two-bedroom home in a rural hillside neighborhood in Southern California for his entire life, and in that time he has seen plenty of fires. Every time, they blew by. Someone else’s house was taken.

This time was different.

A fire driven by searing heat and powerful winds roared across the Santa Ana Mountains and devoured his house in the community of El Cariso Village, leaving the structure a charred and mangled mess. His Ford Explorer, parked nearby, was reduced to a hunk of metal — tires blown, rims melted, windows shattered.

“My dad bought the place back in ’72 and I was born in ’81 and lived up there my whole life,” said Mr. McLean, who works as a carpenter. “Never thought it would happen. They’ve always taken care of us, you know. We have a very good Fire Department.”

The 23,000-acre fire, known as the Airport fire, was one of three major wildfires in Southern California that erupted during a severe heat wave and continued to swell on Thursday. The fires have collectively displaced tens of thousands of people, charred more than 100,000 acres and strained the state’s firefighting resources.

The California fires were among more than 65 large fires blazing across the United States on Thursday, mostly in the West. So far this year, fires have torn through almost seven million acres of land across the country, the largest number of acres to have burned by early September since 2018, according to the National Interagency Fire Center.

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