I don't want anybody to get hurt.

Yeah, that's a pain.

It's hard to comprehend the magnitude and impact of the wildfires burning across California, Oregon, Washington and other western states.

An eerie morning all over the Bay Area as people woke up to an orange sky, thick haze, smoke and ash.

It's dark, it's orange.

It looks a little apocalyptic and a little frightening.

The bad air we've experienced the past three weeks is harmful to everyone.

I've noticed your throat seems a little bit sore or like a headache, so we've tried to minimize how much time we're outside.

In just a few weeks, millions of acres have burned.

Thousands of homes and structures have been destroyed.

Dozens of people have died and more are still missing as rescue workers search through rubble.

This is what search teams are up against.

Debris feels that don't just stretch blocks but entire cities.

The family that lives in this home made it out alive.

But many of their neighbors may not have been so lucky.

The specific causes of this year's fires are varied.

Dry lightning storms, trees falling on power lines.

Even the explosion of colored smoke from a family's gender reveal party.

Climate change is a major reason why these fires continue to get bigger, more frequent and more destructive.

But there's something else.

Years of suppressing wildfires has led to an overgrowth of brush and forest, which means more fuel for the flames when fires do break out.

It wasn't always this way.

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