⁍ Dozens of fires have burned some 4.5 million acres (1.8 million hectares) of tinder-dry brush, grass and woodlands in Oregon, California and Washington state since August.

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⁍ President Donald Trump on Tuesday night approved a request from Oregon’s governor for a federal disaster declaration.

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⁍ Scientists in Europe tracked the smoke as it bore down on the continent.

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– President Trump has approved a federal disaster declaration for Oregon, where dozens of wildfires have killed at least 34 people and destroyed thousands of homes. Oregon Gov. Kate Brown on Wednesday asked Trump to declare the state a major disaster area, the Oregonian reports. The declaration will allow the Federal Emergency Management Agency to expedite the release of funds to help victims of the fires in Oregon, California, and Washington state. In California, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection says 16,600 firefighters were still battling 25 major fires as of Tuesday, after achieving full containment around the perimeter of other large blazes, Reuters reports. Eight deaths have been confirmed during the past week in Oregon, which became the latest and most concentrated hot spot in a larger summer outbreak of fires across the entire western US. The Pacific Northwest was hardest hit. The fires roared to life in California in mid-August, and erupted across Oregon and Washington around Labor Day last week, many of them sparked by catastrophic lightning storms and stoked by record-breaking heat waves and bouts of howling winds. Weather conditions improved early this week, enabling firefighters to begin to make headway in efforts to contain and tamp down the blazes. California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection said 16,600 firefighters were still battling 25 major fires as of Tuesday, after achieving full containment around the perimeter of other large blazes. Eight deaths have been confirmed during the past week in Oregon, which became the latest and most concentrated hot spot in a larger summer outbreak of fires. The wildfires, which officials and scientists have described as unprecedented in scope and ferocity, have filled the region’s skies with smoke and soot, compounding a public health crisis already posed by the coronavirus pandemic.