US fires: State by state

Dealing with the emergency is costing $15m a day

US officials say brush fires raging across 11 western states are the worst in 50 years.

There have been more than 60,000 fires so far this year, devastating nearly four million acres (1.6 million hectares) of land.

The US National Interagency Fire Centre says that 66 large fires are still raging, affecting over 866,000 acres.

Among the areas worst hit is Idaho.Two large new fires were reported on Wednesday, one of which has so far been contained.

Eleven fires are still raging, affecting homes, grazing lands, powerlines and forests.

Nearby, in Montana over 223,000 acres are burning, and hundreds of people and livestock in the Bitterroot Valley have been evacuated from their homes as the fires rage towards them.

There are 21 large fires burning in the Rockies - 20 of them in Montana. The state has deployed 7,500 firefighters but their base camp was overrun by what has been described as an inferno.

Canadian firefighting teams are to be mobilised to tackle some fires.

Reinforcements

In south-western Colorado, a fire in the Mesa Verde National Park has spread across 5,000 acres and is now threatening archaeological sites. Some 90% of the fire is burning in inaccessible terrain.

Many crews have been fighting the fires for weeks

Mesa Verde had just reopened after an earlier blaze forced it to close for two weeks.

Exhausted teams in Arizona, meanwhile, have received reinforcements from Mexico, which has sent one of its crews to help.

In California and Utah, firefighters have made headway against blazes. California's biggest fire burned more than 70,000 acres in the Sequoia National Forest before being largely contained last week. Efforts to douse the conflagration are continuing, however.

Several fires were contained on Tuesday and no new large fires have been reported.

Six fires have yet to be contained in Utah, where some roads have been closed.

Whole areas have been reduced to ashes

Over the border in Nevada, nine large fires are still blazing, with one east of Winnemucca threatening grazing lands.

Elsewhere, fires were burning less fiercely.

Three fires in New Mexico were under control, but wilderness areas ablaze in Oregon were giving cause for concern, with 25-metre (80 foot) flames in Tamarack Creek.

Two fires in Washington and one in Wyoming were still burning.