⁍ Wind-driven flames triggered mass evacuations in California and severely injured two firefighters on Monday.

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⁍ The latest threats came amid California’s worst wildfire season on record in terms of landscape burned.

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⁍ Thousands of homes have been destroyed and 31 lives lost since the start of the year.

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– Wildfires continued to ravage California on Monday as hundreds of thousands of people lost power for a second day due to high winds. Two firefighters were hospitalized with severe burns after a wildfire erupted in Orange County and spread to 7,200 acres south of Los Angeles, reports Reuters. Some 90,800 residents were ordered to evacuate as the fire raged through canyons filled with dry brush in the foothills of the Santa Ana Mountains, officials said. No property losses were immediately reported, but two firefighters among an estimated 500 personnel battling flames with bulldozers and hand tools were hospitalized with severe burns, authorities said. A second Orange County blaze, the Blueridge fire, later broke near Yorba Linda and has charred roughly 1,200 acres. Southern California Edison reported shutting off electricity to 21,000 homes and businesses in the region as a precautionary measure in the face of elevated fire risks posed by dangerously high winds. Hundreds of miles away, the Pacific Gas and Electric Company said it had cut off power to more than 350,000 of its customers for the same reason. Wind-damaged electrical lines have been implicated in causing dozens of devastating California wildfires in recent years, and utilities have increasingly resorted to such ‘public safety power shutoffs’ to reduce the risk. Winds were clocked at up to 89mph in Sonoma County wine country north of San Francisco Bay, and were steadily blowing at more than 50mph elsewhere in the region. By midday Monday, PG&E said it was beginning to restore power to some customers ‘where it is safe to do so,’ with most of the shutoffs expected to be ended by Tuesday night as winds abated.