California’s largest wildfire of 2025 is growing rapidly, prompting urgent evacuations as fire-fueling heat grips the region.

Fire crews battle a massive wildfire in central California and another growing fire in the southern part of the state.

The new orders were for an area near the west edge of Gifford, burning since last week in San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara counties.

New evacuations have been ordered in Central California as the massive Gifford Fire nears 100,000 acres burned. The fire is the largest of the year in California with more than 96,000 acres scorched,

Wildfires that tore through Los Angeles early this year may have caused hundreds more deaths than official reports show, new research suggests. While the fires were said to have taken 31 lives, a study published Wednesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association estimates that about 440 more deaths may be linked to the disaster.