Wildfires rage as US west grapples with heatwave and drought

Multiple homes have been destroyed in central Doyle, California (Noah Berger/AP)

Firefighters were working in extreme temperatures across the US west and struggling to contain wildfires, the largest burning in California and Oregon, as another heatwave baked the region, straining power grids.

The largest wildfire of the year in California — the Beckwourth Complex — was raging along the Nevada state line and has burned about 140 square miles as of Monday morning and state regulators asked consumers to voluntarily “conserve as much electricity as possible” to avoid any outages starting in the afternoon.