Fresh wildfires erupted on Monday near Los Angeles and chased people from their suburban homes as an intense heatwave stretching from the West Coast to New Mexico blistered the region.

Towering columns of smoke rose from the San Gabriel Mountains as two fires a few miles apart devoured brush on steep slopes above foothill suburbs, sending a dark pall into the sky above the Los Angeles skyline.

Police in the city of Azusa and parts of Duarte ordered hundreds of homes evacuated. Others were under voluntary evacuations.MORE