With hundreds of properties now burned to the ground, some 23,000 people have been forced to flee their homes in northern California where two huge wildfires have triggered a state of emergency. At least one person is reported dead and four firefighters have suffered second-degree burns.<br /><br /> It is ranked as the most destructive to hit the drought-stricken U.S. West this year.<br /><br /> The so-called Valley Fire erupted on Saturday and spread quickly to a cluster of small communities in the hills and valleys north of Napa County’s wine-producing region, forcing the evacuation of thousands of residents.<br /><br /> Some recounted chaotic ordeals of having to flee their homes through gauntlets of flames engulfing the neighborhoods around them.<br /><br /> “That whole place was ablaze. It was like Armageddon,” said Steve Johnson, a 37-year-old construction worker from Southern California who was visiting his mother in the fire-ravaged community of Hidden Valley Lake.<br /><br /> “We were literally driving through the flames.”
