MAP: Tracking Napa's 2015 Valley Fire

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GO HERE FOR THE LATEST INFORMATION ON THE OCTOBER 2017 FIRES IN NAPA AND SONOMA. AND SEE THIS RECENT LOWDOWN POST FOR UPDATED FIRE MAPS.

The Valley Fire in Lake County, which started Saturday and spread into neighboring Napa and Sonoma counties, had already scorched at least 61,000 acres as of Monday morning (September 14), destroying hundreds of homes and causing mandatory evacuations throughout the region. (For emergency shelter information, click here). Governor Brown on Sunday declared a state of emergency, just two days after issuing one for the Butte Fire in Amador and Calaveras counties.

The Valley Fire is one of more than 10 active fires currently burning throughout California. This interactive map -- created by EcoWest, a collaborative project of Sea to Snow and the Bill Lane Center for the American West at Stanford University -- plots the boundaries of every major U.S. wildfire currently burning. You can also see every major fire since 2003. Click on the years at the top to see which fires were burning when. Click on individual fires for more details and to view an animated daily progression of each blaze.

U.S. wildfires have already burned more than 8.7 million acres since the beginning of the year, according to the National Interagency Fire Center.

That's a good deal more charred land than the total acreage of Maryland.

Much of this is the result of a massive wildfire season in Alaska, where more than 5 million acres burned this summer. But as the pace there slowed, an unusually aggressive pattern of recent wildfires in the Northwest and California have taken up the slack. As warm, dry conditions persist throughout the West, burning continues at a rapid clip.

There have only been six other years -- all since 2004 -- in which more than 8 million acres burned, based on NIFC records dating back to 1960. And this year is currently ahead of pace of 2006, the worst year on record, when 9.8 million acres were charred.