WILDFIRES RAGED THROUGH California over the past week, killing at least 40 and displacing thousands of people.

Fair City actor Victor Burke – who has played Wayne Molloy on the soap – was among those who was forced to flee his home as the fires threatened his local area in Malibu.

He told the Ray D’Arcy Show on RTÉ Radio One today that he thought people had been “exaggerating” about the extent of the fires, but fled once they saw huge flames coming over the hills.

“We up and ran when we saw the flames coming. We were lucky to get out to be honest,” he said. 

We just grabbed some clothes and the dog… a few photographs and jumped in the car and left everything else behind.

Burke said that his family’s home is destroyed, along with many other buildings in the area.

He said: “I drove up passed the high school where the kids go to school and there’s nothing up there and I went up looking for a friend’s house and I couldn’t even find the street, it’s gone.

There’s 250,000 displaced, everybody in our area is out. We’re in a hotel, we’re safe. People are gone now and they won’t be back. It’s going to be a very different place. People have lost everything.

The “Camp Fire,” which erupted last Thursday, has ravaged 125,000 acres  of land and is 30% contained, according to Cal Fire.

“Last night firefighters continued to hold established containment lines,” Cal Fire said in a morning update earlier. “Firefighters actively fought the fire and worked aggressively.”

Winds of up to 100 kilometres per hour have been fanning the fast-moving flames and no rainfall is forecast for the next few days.

With reporting from AFP