Helicopter pilot Tim Thomas has fought dozens of wildfires all over the world, but nothing prepared him for the scale and the challenge of the devastating blazes that ripped through Los Angeles.

"I've never seen anything the scale that we saw the first night," he told AFP.

Fires erupted almost simultaneously in two separate neighborhoods during a furious windstorm on January 7.

Whole streets were engulfed as hurricane-force gusts flung fireballs from house to house.

Forecasters had been warning of extreme fire risk for days because of punishing dryness and winds up to 100 miles (160 kilometers) an hour, saying any small fire would quickly spread.

Extra resources were positioned all over the at-risk region, which extended for miles around the sprawling metropolis.

But the fires, when they came, were overwhelming, defeating the hundreds of firefighters on the ground.

Only an air assault would stop them.

A terrifying 24 hours after the first smoke blackened the air, winds........

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