(Reuters) – Crews battled nearly a dozen major wildfires across California on Monday that have forced hundreds of people to flee, destroyed dozens of homes and structures and charred thousands of acres of forest land left bone dry by the state’s record drought.The most destructive of the 11 blazes, the Courtney Fire, quickly blackened 320 acres east of Yosemite after it erupted on Sunday, burning several homes to the ground, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

Some 1,000 residents in and around the foothill community of Oakhurst and near Bass Lake were evacuated ahead of the flames, which were 20 percent contained by Monday morning as California baked in a heat wave that drove temperatures into triple digits.

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