Wildfires near Spokane destroy more than 700 buildings,

Wildfires raging on the outskirts of Spokane, Washington, for a third day have destroyed at least 700 buildings and forced tens of thousands of people to flee their homes in and around the state's second-most populous city.



The cluster of three blazes ranks as the top firefighting priority in the U.S. as a whole, including the drought-parched Pacific Northwest, where dozens of major wildfires have been burning for weeks, degrading air quality across a wide region.



The Spokane-area fires have scorched more than 3200 hectares since erupting on Saturday in and around suburbs on the northern fringe of the city, home to about 230,000 residents west of the Rocky Mountain foothills near the Idaho border.



As of Monday, some 64,000 people were under immediate evacuation orders, up from 4,000 a day earlier, aaccording to a spokesperson for the incident command center.



At least 700 structures have gone up in flames, most of them in residential areas, and aerial infrared surveys showed that possibly another 400 buildings, including homes, had been damaged or destroyed/